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Book. 



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CDPn^IGHT DEPOSm 



What a Child Ought to 
Know About the Bible 



BY 

Rev. H. R. STEVENSON, M.A, 

With Foreword by 
Dr. J. PATERSON SMYTH 

AXJTHOR OF ** HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE," ETC., ETC. 



NEW YORK 

JAMES POTT & CO. 
1922 






Copyright, 192a, by 
JAMES POTT & Ca 



©CI.A690136 



NOV 14 '22 



Aa.0 



FOREWORD 

by 
Dr. J. Paterson Smyth 
(Author of "How We Got Our Bible," "The Bible 
in the Making," "St. Paul's Life and Letters," etc., etc.) 



I congratulate the publishers and the American children 
on this delightful little book. Mr. Stevenson has always 
been my ideal of a children's teacher, I have not heard 
him for twelve years, but I could repeat to-day the capital 
little parable of the spider and the missionary box with 
which he enforced that last lesson which I heard. 

These lessons will certainly be interesting. But more 
important is the fact that the children will not have to 
unlearn in later years what they here learn. The fatal 
defect in so many religious lessons to children is that 
they keep on timid and conventional lines and are afraid 
to speak out. There are truths of which there is now 
no question amongst thoughtful people which could easily 
be taught to children and are not, though ignorance of 
them in later life often leads to doubt and misunder- 
standing. 

It is a good rule for Bible teaching even to children 
to be thoroughly candid, to assert nothing as certain which 
is not certain, nothing as probable which is not probable, 
and nothing as more probable than it is. 

Mr. Stevenson tries to do this. He is a devout teacher 
but a straight and candid one, and such teachers will help 
to produce in the new generation a stronger and more 
intelligent faith. 

J. Paterson Smyth. 



PREFACE 

To Parents. — Give a child a *'point of view" on the 
Scriptures when young. He will then not have to un- 
learn much when older. 

To Teachers. — The very best authorities have been 
searched, — the most careful research adopted. 

To the numerous Scholars whose writings I have 
studied for this book, — God's blessing be on you for your 
work. 



4 



CONTENTS 



1. Introduction 7 

2. The Times before History was written . 12 

3. The Patriarchs ....... 22 

4. The Times of Moses -31 

5. The Period of Joshua and Judges . . . 41 

6. The Kings of Israel 53 

7. The Prophets of Israel 64 

8. The Gospels — 1 74 

9. The Gospels — II 85 

10. The Gospels — III. . 95 

11. Other Writings of the New Testament . 107 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

1. Everyone who knows that George Washington was 
a great general will be able to understand this book. Be- 
cause, if they are old enough to know that George Wash- 
ington was a great general, they will be old enough to 
know that they may read all about him in the History 
of the United States. 

2. Now, if you were to turn to your History of the 
United States, which you read in school, you will find on 
the first or second page, down near the bottom of the 
page, a date, 191 6, or some other such date, not very 
long ago. Now I want to ask you, do you think that 
the History of the United States was written in 191 6, or 
some other such date, not very long ago, and that none 
of it was written before then? Of course you will tell 
me that a lot of it was written before then, beginning 
with the oldest part first, and that it was all gathered 
together and made up-to-date in your book printed in 191 6. 

3. Now I want to ask you if the little boys and 
girls had a History of the United States to read and learn 
in the time when George Washington lived? Of course 
you will tell me again that they had a History of America, 
telling what had happened up to their time. So we learn 

7 



8 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

this, that History has been written slowly, bit by bit, 
the oldest part first. 

4. Now I need not tell you that the little French 
boys and girls have a History of France to learn; the 
German boys and girls a History of Germany; but I 
would like to tell you that all nations have had a 
History, even those of long ago. You may be very 
clever at American History ; — what History do you know 
better than American History? 

5. Do you know all about Peter the Great and 
Queen Catherine? No. Then it is not Russian His- 
tory that you know better than American History. 
Do you know all about Confucius and Buddha. No. 
Then it is not Chinese History. All about Antony and 
Brutus? No. It is not Roman History. All about 
Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David? Ah, yes. Why, 
you say, of course, I know those things as well as Amer- 
ican History. Then you know the History of the Is- 
raelites as well as the History of the United States. 

6. I suppose you would think it very strange If in 
your American History you found sermons of great 
preachers, poems of great poets, and after every great 
event a paragraph saying whether God was pleased or 
not, and the whole book called some name, like, for 
instance, "Masterpieces." Yet that was the way the 
Israelites wrote their History, putting in great sermons 
and great poems, and always talking about God, and 
then they put it all together, and we call it the *'Bible." 
If j^ou are wondering what the great poems are in the 
Bible, and what the great sermons are in the Bible, turn 
to the first pages of the Bible, and look at the names 
of the books of the Bible. From the Book of Job to 



INTRODUCTION 9 

the Song of Solomon is a collection of great poems. 
From Isaiah to Malachi is a great collection of sermons, 
generally called prophecies. 

7. Now we have found out this much so far. All 
History was written slowly, bit by bit, the oldest part 
first. Is the Bible different to all other history and 
written altogether, all at once? No. Is the Bible dif- 
ferent to all other history, and written by an Angel? 
No. Is the Bible different to all other history because 
it has in it great sermons and great poems, and is always 
talking about God? Yes. 

8. You would think it a very strange thing if the 
History of England told you that some day in England 
would be born a great King, greater than King Edward 
or King George, who would rule over the whole world. 
I am sure you would be wondering if he would be born 
in your time. Well, that is exactly what the Bible, the 
History of the Israelites, says about the Israelites, for it 
very often tells about the King that is coming. 

9. What a strange thing it would be if English 
History told you about a great King; and you could 
come into the world again two thousand years later 
and find that he had really come. Well, the King really 
came to the Israelites, and part of the Bible, and that 
the most important part, tells us what He did, and said, 
and taught. People now-a-days call the part of the 
Bible which tells that the King is coming, and has 
sermons and poems, — the Old Testament; and that part 
which tells about the King Himself, — the New Testa- 
ment. 

10. Now if I were to ask you, who told the writer 
of your American History to write an American History, 



10 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

you would probably tell me that you do not know; that 
he does not say who told him, and that for all you know 
he might have told himself to write it. And I could 
tell you that no writer of American History, or any other 
History, at any time, says that any one told him to 
write the History, except the men who wrote the Bible. 
And that the men who wrote the Bible say almost on 
every page that God told them to write it, and chose 
them to write it so as to teach people what God wanted 
them to do, 

11. So we say that the Bible is the History of the 
Israelites, and the History of the great King, Jesus, 
who came; and God teaching the people of the world 
through the Israelites and through Jesus. 

12. Supposing you were out in your garden, and 
your little brothers told you that you had better not do 
something which you were just going to do. You 
might say, what do they know about it, whether it is 
right or wrong. But if your big brother came down 
from your father upstairs, and gave you a message from 
your father not to do it, you would say, that is different, 
— it is the word of my father, a message from my 
father; he is speaking to me through my brother. So 
we say that the Bible is God's message to us; God 
speaking to us through the Israelites and through Jesus; 
It is God's word. 

13. There is only one thing else I want you to 
learn in this chapter. I ask you, what is the difference 
between the American Nation and the United States? 
Why, you say, they are the same nation under different 
names. So the Israelite nation and the Jewish nation 
IS the same nation under different names. Therefore, 



INTRODUCTION II 

you will always remember that the Jews that you see 
now are the descendants of the old Jews we read of 
in the Bible. 

14. What have we learnt so far then? That all 
History was written slowly, bit by bit, the oldest part 
first. The Bible also was not written all at once, or 
by an Angel, but slowly, bit by bit, the oldest part first. 
That the Bible is God's message to us, God speaking 
to us through the Israelites and through Jesus, and so 
it is the Word of God, 



CHAPTER II 

PRE-HISTORIC, OR THE TIMES BEFORE 
HISTORY WAS WRITTEN 

15. Never be frightened by a big word. It will not 
eat you up. You can always tame it to tell you what 
it means. Lots of girls and boys like to use big words, 
but you will notice that wise men and women use simple 
words as often as possible. But there are times when 
we can use one big word instead of three or four little 
simple words. For instance, we say "coronation" in- 
stead of saying "the crowning of the king." So wc 
use "Pre-historic" instead of saying *^the times before 
history was written." When you find "pre" in front 
of a word it generally means "before." Prefix — to fix 
before, prepay — to pay before, pre-historic — before his- 
tory. You know how much quicker it is to write short- 
hand than to write the whole thing out. So it is quicker 
to use words like "Pre-historic" than always to be say- 
ing "the times before history was written." So now 
you ought to feel very big and wise, as you know that 
pre-historic means before history was written. 

16. Now I want you to know that the Pre-historic 
times of the Bible, or the times before history was 
written, are found beginning from the first chapter of 
the Book of Genesis, and going on to the eleventh 
chapter of the Book of Genesis, — Genesis being the first 

12 



THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN I3 

Book of the Bible, and now divided up for us into 
chapters and verses. You Vi^iU probably think that this 
little book which you are reading is very much like school, 
because in this chapter I talk to you about writing. 
But it is not the hard writing that you have to do in 
your school. You have learnt in the last chapter how 
history was written, bit by bit, the oldest part first; now 
you are to learn what happened before history was 
written. 

17. Supposing you went out to the North American 
Indians, and you could speak their language. I am sure 
you have often played Indians, and you know they go 
about in tribes. Now if you were to ask an Indian to 
tell you the history of his tribe, he would not show you 
a history book, because he would not have one to show 
you. But he might tell you, our tribe used to live in 
the North, then went down to the South, and then came 
here, where I was born. You might ask him how he 
knew all that. He would reply, my father told me, 
and his father told him, and his father told him, and 
so on away back a great many years. So the story of 
the tribe was handed down from father to son. So I 
want to tell you that everything was handed down or 
told from father to son before history was written. So 
were the Great Lessons of the Beginning of the World, 
of Adam and Eve, of the Garden of Eden, of Cain and 
Abel, of the Flood, of the Tower of Babel, told from 
father to son for many, many years before they were 
written down. When they were first told we cannot 
tell. When they were first written we cannot tell. The 
earliest written copy of them that we have was written 
about the time of Abraham. 



14 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

1 8. Now we will suppose that you are still out 
among the Indian tribes, and that you wanted to teach 
them to write. You might draw on the sand a rough 
picture of something like this. Three little canoes and 
three little round circles as pictures of the sun. This 
would mean, "gone on a journey over the water for 
three days," each circle or sun meaning the sunshine or 
the day. This is what we call picture writing. IVe 
no doubt you could think of a lot of messages like that 
which you could write on the sand, and if you taught 
the whole tribe they could write messages like that to 
each other after a while. Now that is exactly how in 
the very olden days before history was written people 
began to write. We call it picture-writing. 

19. But we will say, instead of writing these pictures 
on the sand, you took some soft clay, and made it into 
the shape of a brick, and wrote these pictures on it very 
small, with a bit of iron for a pen; and then you made 
a fire and baked the bricks hard, — supposing you did all 
that, — ^well, that is just the way people in the very olden 
times began to write. But when you are in school, in 
writing, you are very careful almost to paint the letters, 
you would almost think you were drawing a picture; 
but if you look at your father's writing, you will find 
that he has not been very careful to form his letters well, 
because he has to write much faster now. So when 
people began to know how to write, they did not need 
to stick so close to the pictures, and could write faster, 
and so writing changed. It was this changed picture- 
writing that was used in the time when Abraham lived. 

20. Now you are still out with the Indians, and you 
ask another boy of the same tribe about the history of 



THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN I5 

his tribe. And he says also that they came from the 
north to the south, and then to their present place, and 
he adds a lot of silly stories about a great bear and a 
great tiger having a fight, and the bear killing the tiger, 
and taking the tiger's tail, and dragging the tribe south 
by the tiger's tail, and a lot of other stories like that. 
Why, you would say, he imagined all that. So I want 
to tell you there are two accounts of the Beginning of 
the World, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and 
the Flood. One a straightforward account which we 
fkid in the Bible, and the other an account belonging 
to the Babylonian nation in the time of Abraham, which 
is something the same, except that it has silly imagined 
stories like one god killing another and skinning him, 
and hanging his skin up for the sky. And it is the last 
account, the silly imagined story account, that we may 
see for ourselves in the British Museum written on clay 
bricks in the Babylonian picture-writing. 

21. Now we have got this far, and learnt this much. 
Pre-historic means the time before history was written. 
The history of a nation was told by father to son before 
history was written. So the story of the Beginning of 
the World in the Bible, of Adam and Eve, of the 
Garden of Eden, of Cain and Abel, of the Flood, of 
the Tower of Babel, was told by father to son for many, 
many years before history was written. When they 
were first told, or first written, we cannot tell, but the 
earliest copy of them which we have is in the British 
Museum, the silly imagined account of the Babylonian 
nation written about the time of Abraham. 

You remember in our last chapter we said that God 
taught the people of the world through the Bible; that 



1 6 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

the Bible was God teaching the world in messages and 
lessons. Now let us look at those grand old lessons 
that God taught before history was written. 

22. I must tell you here that the number seven has 
always amongst all nations been a very sacred number. 
And you can easily see how such a hard lesson as you 
read in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis about the 
Beginning of the World could be more easily learnt by 
remembering it by seven days. All girls and boys who 
have to learn anything off by heart know that it would 
be easier to learn it that way than almost any other 
way. Wise men tell us that God took centuries and 
ages, not days, to make the world; — the sacred number 
of seven days was the most convenient way of remem- 
bering it as it was told by father to son for a great many 
years before it was written down. 

23. Now if I were to take you into a school, and 
we were to try to find out if the teacher of the school 
was a just teacher, and good and kind, supposing some- 
thing like this happened. We got hold of a boy who 
was naughty and disobedient, and was always getting 
scoldings and whippings to make him good; and he told 
us the teacher was a brute. We would say, this dis- 
obedient boy tells us the teacher is a brute, because he 
is disobedient and naughty. We then get hold of 
another boy, who is the best behaved boy, and tries to 
do the best, and he tells us the teacher is perfect, just, 
good and kind. And then we get hold of the strangest 
boy of all, a boy who tells us there is not any teacher 
at all, but the children learn from each other. Which 
of these three would we believe? The disobedient boy 
who called the teacher a brute, because he wanted to 



THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN 1 7 

be disobedient and naughty? The good boy, who told 
US the teacher was good, perfect, just and kind? The 
strange boy who tells us the children learn from each 
other, and that there was no teacher? Why, we would 
take what the best boy told us, to be sure; he ought 
to know best. 

24. So in the early days of the world there were 
nations who told us that their teacher, God, was a brute 
and foolish, because they were disobedient and wicked. 
But the one nation who, like the good boy, always 
tried to do right was the Israelite nation, which gives 
us the right picture of our great Teacher, God, telling 
us God is perfect, just, good and kind. So we say, 
everything in the Bible is sacred. So the Great Lesson 
of the Beginning of the World is sacred; it tells us 
that the world did not make itself, that the world was 
not made by a brute, but that the world was made by 
a good, just, perfect and kind God. So the Great 
Lessons of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Cain 
and Abel, tell us that God taught the first pair of 
people He put into the world that He is just, good, 
perfect and kind, and punishes wicked people and helps 
good people. 

25. Children, have you ever read a book called 
"Pilgrim's Progress"? If not, get it and read it. It 
tells the story of a Christian man in a children's story- 
book way. It is different from every other book, be- 
cause it is so simple a child may read it, and so true that 
the wisest man must reverence it. The story of the 
Garden of Eden is the "Pilgrim's Progress" of the 
early days of the world. It is so simple a child could 



l8 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

remember it, and it is so true that the wisest man has 
to reverence it, 

26. If I were to say to you, "The Path of Knowl- 
edge lies through the School/' you would not think 
that I meant that there was a real path going from the 
primary classroom through all the others up to the 
highest classroom, and that there was a real path covered 
with real knowledge so you could walk on knowledge. 
And you would not say because I did not mean all this, 
that it was not true. But you would say, yes, it is 
perfectly true that the Path of Knowledge lies through 
the School. 

27. So when the Bible says of Cain in Genesis, 
chapter four, verse ten, **the voice of thy brother's 
blood crieth," because it doesn't mean that the blood 
really cried, we do not say, "it cannot be true." But 
we say that it means that Cain ought to be punished 
for his murder. 

28. So when the Bible speaks about the Garden of 
Eden, because it may not mean a real speaking serpent, 
and real mysterious trees, we ought not to say it is not 
true. For it may mean that everyone is forbidden to 
touch or do certain things, the serpent is the bad sugges- 
tions that come to everyone, to steal jam or to shirk 
school when they are young, to steal reputations and 
shirk work when they are grown up, and that God 
always finds them out, and punishes the wicked people 
and helps the good people. What a wonderful lesson! 
No wonder in the early days of the world it helped 
people so much. 

29. I have now to tell you that there are a great 
number of stories of the Flood in all nations, and even 



THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN IQ 

amongst Indian and savage tribes. That the Flood was 
probably in the very, very early days of the world. 
And that "all the world'' means "all the then known 
world.'' Suppose you were in a school where there 
were many bad boys and girls. You know when boys 
and girls get tog wicked for school and home, they are 
sent to the Reformatory. The Reformatory is a place 
where they take boys and girls who are wicked and 
try to make them good. Supposing one day in your 
school of bad boys and girls, a van came from the 
Reformatory, and took away all the bad boys and girls, 
and there were only seven good ones left. Have you 
ever sat in a circle and told the boy next to you a story, 
and he tells the same story to the next boy, and so on 
all round the circle until it comes back to you again? 
I think you will be astonished if it comes back to you 
without being exaggerated. Well, it would not matter 
so much about the size of the van, or the size of the 
Reformatory, or how^ long it took to get the wicked boys 
out of the school, so long as you who remained remem- 
bered the lesson, that the wicked boys were taken to the 
Reformatory and the good boys were left to make a 
better school. 

30. So we believe that in the early days of the world 
God took the wicked people by a flood into His great 
Reformatory, and left the good people to make a better 
world. We say that the story handed down by father 
to son for a great number of years might have got 
exaggerated, and we do not say that God should have 
guided it so that it could not have been exaggerated; 
but we do say that God guided it so that its Great 



20 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

Lesson was written for us, that God punishes wicked 
people and helps good people. 

31. Thus also in the Great Lesson of the Tower 
of Babel we find God not guiding the story so that it 
could not get exaggerated, but guiding it so that its Great 
Lesson was written for us. God punishes any short 
cuts to Heaven, or, we might say, happiness. If in 
your school you were all sitting together and copying 
from one another, your teacher would separate you, and 
tell you there was no short cut like that to knowledge. 
When you grew older you would be very thankful for 
that Lesson. So when the world grew older, the good 
and wise people were very thankful to God for guid- 
ing men to write down and preserve such a Great Les- 
son as the Tower of Babel, telling us that God's way 
into Heaven and happiness is the only way. 

32. I have only one thing more to tell you before 
I finish this chapter. Some men who are living now 
have tried to tell us that these Great Lessons of God 
are not very good accounts of the Beginning of the 
World, the beginning of people in the world, and the 
beginning of different languages. But listen to what 
the wise and good men tell us about all their study 
through the telescope and the microscope and all that 
we call science. They tell us that the world was made 
in order, by stages ; and this the Bible tells us in the first 
chapter. That there must have been a first pair; and 
this the Bible tells us in the Garden of Eden chapter. 
That all nations and languages came from one centre, 
probably Babylon, or Babel. That there is no reason 
why a great flood of a great river should not have come 



THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN 21 

amongst the few people who were gathered together 
in one place in the early, early days of the world. 

33. What then have we learnt in this chapter? In 
the time before history was written, History was told 
from father to son. So the first eleven chapters of 
Genesis were told. When they were first written, or 
when they were first told, we cannot tell. But Abra- 
ham probably had them as his Bible written on clay 
bricks in the old picture-writing of the Babylonian lan- 
guage. In these great Lessons, the Beginning of the 
World, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Cain and 
Abel, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, are found, as 
wise men tell us, very good accounts of the Beginning 
of the World, of people, and of nations and languages. 
But it is not so much the language of them that God 
guided, as that God guided the Great Lessons; that He 
Himself made the world, by stages; that He is perfect, 
good, just, and kind; that He punishes wicked people 
and helps good people; Great Lessons, indeed, before 
which we bow in reverence, and thank God for guiding 
and preserving them for us in His sacred book, the Bible, 
which is the teaching of God to the world, the Word 
of God to the people of the world. 



CHAPTER III 

THE PATRIARCHS 

34. Here is another hard word for us to attack, and 
tame, to give us its meaning. You have often, I suppose, 
in your school given a dialogue, so you knovi^ that a 
dialogue is a conversation between two or more people. 
Do you know what a monologue is? Well, a mono- 
logue is a conversation by one person, if I may put it 
so. The last part of these two words, '^dialogue" and 
"monologue," that is "logue" means "talk." Where- 
ever you find "mono" before a word it means "one." 
It comes from a Greek word meaning "one." Mono- 
logue means talk by one; monotone means one tone; 
monotony means one sameness ; monarch means the 
rule of one, for the last part of monarch, the "arch," 
comes from a Greek word meaning rule. Now you 
ought to feel very clever at knowing two Greek words; 
"mono" at the beginning of a word means one; "arch" 
at the end of a word means rule. 

35. Can you think of any other word ending with 
"arch"? Why, Patriarch, to be sure. Yes. So patri- 
arch means the rule of someone. Of whom? Did you 
ever hear of a boy calling his father "pater"? So 
"pater" means father. Patriarch then means the rule of 
the Fathers. When we talk then of the Patriarchs of 
the Bible we mean the Fathers of the Israelite nation, 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. For in the days 

22 



THE PATRIARCHS 23 

of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph there was no 
Israelite nation proper, but Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and 
Joseph were at the head of the family that afterwards 
grew so large that it became a nation. You may often 
read in the Bible a sentence like this, "The God of our 
Fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." 
So the part of the Bible I am going to tell you about 
now in this chapter is the period of the Patriarchs, 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, beginning at the 
eleventh chapter of the Book of Genesis, and going on 
to the end of that Book. 

36. You will remember that you have already learnt 
that in the days when Abraham lived there was picture- 
writing. Abraham, being a fairly well-to-do man of 
those times, having plenty of flocks and servants, must 
have known how to write and read the picture-writing. 
For when he lived there were libraries and schools. He 
might therefore have written down his own history, the 
story of his own life. So also Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph 
might have written the stories of their own lives. But 
whether they did or did not, we cannot tell. It has 
generally been thought that Moses wrote, or caused to 
be written, all that the Bible tells us up to the time 
of his death, which of course includes the Bible that 
Abraham probably had, and the lives of Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and Joseph. It was possible for Moses to write 
it, because, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, 
he must have known how to write. He would not 
probably write in a book, but on various papyrus 
papers which we will talk about later, these papyrus 
sheets a long time afterwards being formed into a book. 
It is highly probable that Moses wrote this part of 



24 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

the Bible because he would have seen the Egyptians 
writing the history of their nation. 

37. When you first go to school you start in the 
lowest class. And then you do not jump right up to the 
highest class; but you come up one class at a time. Now 
that is just the way God has taught the people of the 
world. He put them in the lowest class first, and then 
began to educate them. In your school when learning 
arithmetic you learn first how to add, subtract, multiply, 
and divide. You learn the simple things first, and then 
your lessons get higher and higher. So before Abraham 
lived God taught the people of the world this simple 
Lesson, *^God punishes the wicked, and helps the good 
people." What higher Lesson, then, did God teach 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph? Just this 
higher Lesson, "God is a Great Friend, to Whom we 
can speak, and Who speaks to us." 

38. This then is one thing you ought to know and 
remember. Before Abraham lived the world learnt 
this Lesson. "God punishes the wicked, and helps the 
good people." Through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and 
Joseph the world learnt this Lesson, "God is a Great 
Friend, to Whom we can speak, and Who speaks to us." 

39. How did God speak to Abraham? And how 
did Abraham speak to God? I want to ask you a 
question first. Has God ever spoken to you? Perhaps 
you will say, "No; I mean not in the way God spoke 
to Abraham." Why not in the way God spoke to 
Abraham? Does not God love you as much as He 
loved Abraham? Yes, He loves you just as much as 
He loved Abraham. Perhaps it is that you do not love 
God as much as Abraham did? I think you must 



THE PATRIARCHS 2$ 

believe this, that God speaks to you just in the same 
way that He spoke to Abraham, and the more you love 
God the more He speaks to you. How does God speak 
to you, then ? 

40. If a man told you to take up a stone, and throw 
It at a cripple boy, something within you would tell 
you, "that's wrong." That is what you call your 
conscience. But it is God's voice saying to you, "NO." 
Have you ever helped an old lady across the street and 
felt very happy as you made up your mind to do it? 
That feeling of happiness is God's voice, saying, 
"YES." You know that there is a difference between 
your father's way of saying, "yes" and "no." You 
feel badly about one, and happy about the other. So 
when God says "NO," and we disobey Him, we feel 
miserable, and when God says "YES" we feel happy. 
Perhaps God spoke to Abraham in some other way now 
and again, but we can be sure that God for the most 
part spoke to Abraham, "YES" and "NO," as He 
speaks to us. 

41. And how did Abraham speak to God? Why, 
the same way as we do, — ^w^ent down on his knees, and 
spoke to God in prayer. Or offered a sacrifice to God, 
frequently and often offering something of his very own 
to God; just as we can do with our offerings of service 
in doing something for Him, and giving help and money, 
in which case, as the saying is, actions speak louder than 
words. 

42. I must tell you now that when people hear God 
saying "NO," and disobey Him all the time, — God's 
voice to them becomes weaker and weaker, just as if they 
stuffed their ears with cottonwool. And they cease to 



26 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

speak to God in prayer and action, and God is forgotten. 
If all the people of the world grew to be like that, what 
a wicked place the world would be. Thank God, then, 
that Abraham heard His voice and made God his Friend. 

43. Now you know that God did not love Abraham 
more than He loves you, but that Abraham probably 
loved God better than you love God. God has no 
favourites. God did not call and. choose Abraham 
instead of the king of Babylon, God did not call and 
choose Jacob instead of Esau, God did not call and 
choose Joseph instead of his brothers, just because He 
wanted to. God is not careless in picking out leaders of 
men. Who is the leader of your class in school, who 
is the head of your class? And why is he there? 
Because he loves to learn more than the others do. No 
one who does not love to learn is ever the leader of his 
class. Now, who v/ere the leaders for God, and w^hy 
did He choose them? No one who did not love God 
very much could be a leader. Therefore God would 
not call or choose the king of Babylon, Esau, Joseph's 
brothers, because they did not love Him enough, but 
loved themselves too much. But God called and choose 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, because they loved 
Him so much and made a Friend of Him. 

44. Now you must not think that everybody that 
loved God in the old days was perfect. Perhaps I know 
what you think about Abraham. You probably think 
that everything he did was perfectly right. No. Abra- 
ham told a lie when he said once that his wife was his 
sister. Isaac told the same lie about his wife. Jacob 
did what was wrong when he pretended to his old father 
that he was Esau. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph 



THE PATRIARCHS ^^ 

were not perfect. Why were they not perfect? Be- 
cause God gave to them like He has given to you, the 
power to do good or to do bad things. They sometimes 
chose to do bad things, but mostly they chose to do good 
things. I wonder if it is the same with you. But as 
they grew older they got better and happier, and chose 
to do good more and more. I wonder if it will be the 
same with you. Because they loved God, God chose 
them to be leaders. I wonder if you will be a leader, 
and an example to people how to live. Because they 
loved God, and God therefore chose them as leaders, 
they did a tremendous amount of good. I wonder if 
It will be the same with you. If it is the same with 
you, as we older ones know, you will thank God long 
and earnestly for His sacred Book, His Word, the 
Bible. 

45. So much did Abraham love God that he was 
going to offer his beloved son to God. And God told 
him to offer a ram instead. So much did Abraham love 
God, that when he wanted a wife for his son, Isaac, he 
trusted God entirely to guide him in his choice. So 
much did Jacob love God, that he was continually seeing 
the angels of God in his dreams. So much did Joseph 
love God, that all the miseries he went through, slavery, 
temptation, prison life, only increased his love for God. 
Would you be willing to offer what you loved to God? 
Do you ever dream about the angels of God, because 
you think so much about God? Will you, if you marry, 
trust entirely to God to guide you? Would you, if you 
had to go through many miseries, love God all the more? 
If you try to do all this, you will grow up into a 
beautiful, happy, and helpful person. Ah! they had 



28 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

love for God in those days. They knew what faith in 
God meant. 

46. Perhaps you will think I have been preaching 
you a sermon. But I have been doing ^o such thing. 
I have just given you the sermon that Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and Joseph preached to the world. Love God, 
speak to Him, hear Him, for He is a Friend. 

47. Now, in order that we may understand the period 
of the Patriarchs better, let us imagine for a few 
moments, that Moses is sitting down with his papyrus 
sheets, to write the history of Israel. You will remem- 
ber that Jacob's name was changed to Israel, and that 
IS why his descendants were called Israelites. How is 
Moses to find out about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and 
Joseph? Well; Jacob's children and their families, had 
settled in Egypt under a king who liked them. For 
many, many years, the children increased, until they 
became a small nation. Then a new line of kings came, 
who hated them and made them into slaves. When 
they became slaves, they would not have much time to 
learn writing and reading; but they would often tell, we 
may be sure, in their rude slave huts, about Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, the great fathers of their nation. 
So the story would be handed down from father to son, 
perhaps written and preserved, perhaps written and taken 
from them by their slave-masters, perhaps never written 
at all. Do you think that the story of Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and Joseph might have got exaggerated, being 
told for so many years? Moses would have a very hard 
task. We do not say God should have taken Moses* 
hand and guided his pen. We do not say God should 
have made an Angel write it, so that there could be 



THE PATRIARCHS 29 

no mistakes. But we say and believe that God guided 
and preserved for us, the Great Lesson that He taught 
through the Patriarchs. 

48. Therefore, when we read of men living to the 
age of nearly a thousand, what are we to say? Well, 
just this much. In the early days they might have lived 
to that age; or perhaps their ages were mistakenly ex- 
aggerated, the story going through so many people. 
Supposing you were out in the playground with the rest 
of your class, and the head boy of the class comes out 
and says, "Teacher wants you all to behave yourselves.'* 
If that was quickly repeated from boy to boy until when 
you heard it, it was something like this, "Teacher wants 
you all to be good, and the head boy was with the teacher 
for twenty minutes, and is eighteen years old." Now, 
if you believed that the head boy was with the teacher 
only five minutes, and was only fourteen years old, 
would you take the boy who gave you the message by 
the throat, and say, "You're a liar; the teacher never 
sent the message." No, I think you would say, "The 
message is certainly from the teacher, but in getting to 
me some of the things that do not matter have got 
exaggerated." So we say about Moses. He has got 
the Message and Lesson of the Patriarchs clear ; it would 
be a wonder, indeed, if some of the things that do not 
matter had not got exaggerated. 

49. What have we learnt then in this chapter? The 
period of the Patriarchs, means the period of the fathers 
of the Israelite nation; the name of the nation, Israelite, 
being taken from Jacob's changed name, Israel. God 
has educated the world with simple Lessons first. In 
the pre-historic period God's Lesson was, God punishes 



30 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

bad people and helps good people. In the period of the 
Patriarchs, God's Lesson was, God is a Friend Who 
speaks to you and to Whom you can speak. God spoke 
to Abraham the same as He speaks to you. The feeling 
of happiness is God saying, **YES." The feeling that 
you ought not to do a certain thing is God's **NO." 
Conscience is God's voice. The more you love God the 
more God chooses you for some great work. The 
Patriarchs were not perfect, but they were always 
struggling to become perfect. In the story of the 
Patriarchs, God's Message and Lesson is clear; it would 
be a wonder, indeed, if some of the things that do not 
matter, going through so many years, had not got 
exaggerated. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE TIMES OF MOSES 

50. Do you remember how Moses when a little 
boy was placed in an ark or box of bulrushes? Well, 
these bulrushes grew as a water plant with great reeds, 
and a box of these made in the time of king or Pharaoh 
Rameses 11. of Egypt, is to be seen in the British 
Musuem. But at the centre of the plant there were 
strong reeds which the Egyptians took and polished, and 
used as stiff paper to write on. They called it Papyrus, 
and it is from this word that we get our word *^paper." 
It was on these papyrus sheets that Moses would write. 

51. If I were to ask you if you knew when 
Napoleon lived, you would probably say, "Oh, yes, 
at the same time as the Duke of Wellington lived." 
And you know that you could read about the struggle 
between them, both in English History and in French 
History. But, of course, you would expect English 
History (England being the winning side) to be fuller 
of it than French History. So in the tim.es of Moses, 
we read of the struggle of the Israelites and the Egyp- 
tians, both in the Bible and in Egyptian History; fuller, 
of course, in the Bible, because the Israelites won the 
struggle. If two schools were having a football match, 
and a boy of one school came to you and said, "Our 
school won," you M^ould feel pretty sure of it. But if 
another boy from the other school came to you and said, 
"Our school lost the match," you would be perfectly 

31 



32 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

sure of It. So the Bible comes to us and tells us, that 
the Israelites fought against the Egyptians, and won 
their freedom. And then Egyptian history comes to us 
and tells us, **We lost in our struggle with the Israelites." 
This makes it doubly sure to us that there was a struggle, 
that the Israelites won, and that the Egyptians lost. 

52. It is this struggle between the Israelites, the 
family of Jacob which had grown into a nation, and 
the Egyptians that we are going to study in this chapter 
on the times of Moses. I wonder if you would like 
to see the Pharaoh or king of Egypt, who oppressed the 
Israelites so wickedly, the Pharaoh before whom Moses 
stood. I wonder if you would be astonished if I told 
you that you could go and see, — not him, — but his 
body. I think you would probably be astonished, yet 
if you go to the Museum in Cairo in Egypt, you may 
see his mummy, that is, his body preserved by the use of 
spices. But how do we know exactly that this is really 
the body or mummy of the Pharaoh who oppressed the 
Israelites ? 

53. Well, you know how English history is divided 
up into groups or families or dynasties, such as, the 
Norman kings, the Stuarts, etc.; so different families or 
groups or dynasties reigned in Egypt. You know also 
how rich people have their family vaults or burying 
lots, where all the members of the family are buried. 
So in Egypt the families of the different groups or 
dynasties had their tombs, where all the members of the 
group were buried. And you know, also, that we write 
the names of our dead and inscriptions on the tomb- 
stones over their graves. So the Egyptians, on the tombs 
of their kings, wrote their names and lengthy inscriptions. 



THE TIMES OF MOSES 33 

And you know likewise, how to-day, when we put up a 
monument, we inscribe on it the reason why it was 
erected. So did the Egyptians. And it is from these 
inscriptions on the tombs and monuments of Egypt and 
the papyrus sheets, — that wise men learn Egyptian 
history. But all these are now mostly buried in the 
sand, and have to be dug up and read. I suppose that 
only a small number of these incriptions that are buried 
in Egypt have been dug up and read. Amongst the 
many more that will be dug up in the future we may 
find many things written about the Israelites. But have 
any of the few that have been discovered and dug up 
got any reading on them about the Israelites? Yes, 
one inscription tells us about a revolution on the part 
of the Israelites in the reign of Meneptah, one of the 
kings of Egypt belonging to the Rameses group of 
kings. We read on the inscriptions also, that Rameses 
II., who reigned just before Meneptah, was the greatest 
builder of all the kings of Egypt, and built huge treasure- 
cities. The mummy of Rameses II. may be seen in 
the Museum at Cairo, Egypt. 

54. Now we look at the Bible, and see what the 
Bible says about Egypt. First, you will remember that 
one king of Egypt made Joseph head of the nation, 
prime-minister of Egypt, as we would say, and even 
allowed Jacob to bless him; while later on, another king 
arose who hated the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. 
Well, this fits in exactly with a portion of Egyptian 
history. Before the Rameses group of kings, the Shep- 
herd kings lived, and these Shepherd kings had obtained 
the kingdom by force, and were hated by the real 
Egyptians. Then the Rameses kings of real Egyptian 



34 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

royal blood regained the throne. Wise men think, then, 
that the Shepherd kings were reigning when Joseph was 
living, and the Rameses kings when Moses lived. 
Secondly, the Bible says about Potiphar, Joseph's master, 
"Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, 
an Egyptian." Why add that he was an Egyptian? 
Were they not all Egyptians? No. The Shepherd kings 
were reigning, and it was indeed strange that a real 
Egyptian should hold such a high position. Thirdly, 
the Bible says about the time of Moses, **Every shepherd 
is an abomination to the Egyptians." Why? Because 
the Shepherd kings had been ruling, and they were not 
of real Egyptian blood. 

55. Photographs have been taken of the treasure- 
cities built by Rameses II., and they show some bricks 
built with straw, and the upper bricks built without 
straw. Do you remember how the Bible says, "Ye 
shall no more give the people straw to make brick." 
"There shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver 
the tale of bricks." "And they built for Pharaoh 
treasure-cities, Pithom and Rameses." A papyrus sheet 
has been found saying that Rameses was built by 
Rameses II. Many of these papyrus sheets have been 
found, telling about the time of Rameses II. One tells 
us that the land of Goshen (where the Bible tells us 
that the Israelites dwelt) had been left as pasture land 
for cattle to wandering shepherds "since the days of 
our forefathers." Shortly after in the same reign all 
these people had disappeared. A letter later on says 
Arab tribes had been allowed into the land of Goshen: 
wise men suppose to fill up the place left by the 
Israelites. 



THE TIMES OF MOSES 35 

56. You have often played, I should think, with 
picture-puzzles, which are all cut up into peculiar little 
pieces, and you have to piece them together so as to 
make a large picture. You may be surprised to know 
that the history of the world is just such a picture as 
that, in little pieces here and there of different nations; 
and many big learned men spend their whole lives 
trying to piece them together into a history of the world. 
When the history of one nation speaks about another 
nation, the wise men who write history try to fit the 
two together. And how delighted you are in your 
picture game when you make one piece fit into another! 
Why, it fits exactly, you say. So the times of Moses 
fits in exactly with the times of Rameses II. and 
Meneptah of Egypt. 

57. What do we gain then by knowing all this? 
Just this much. That the account of Moses and the 
journey of the Israelites from Egypt must have been 
written down by men who had been through the 
struggle. So while we do not know whether any of 
the Patriarchs wrote any of the Bible, we may feel 
pretty sure that Moses did. For if this part of the Bible 
had been written later, say in the times of David, or 
when the prophets were preaching and writing, every- 
thing would not fit in so well. But at the same time 
you must remember that Moses probably only wrote 
on the papyrus sheets, and these a long time afterwards 
were gathered into a book. 

58. If I were to ask you which was the more 
wonderful thing for God to do, — send the plagues and 
take the Israelites across the Red Sea, or give Moses 
the Ten Commandments, — I wonder which you WQuld 



36 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

say was the more wonderful. I will tell you that the 
more wonderful thing was the giving Moses the Ten 
Commandments. It is a very wonderful thing to us 
that God should make the water go the way he wants 
with a strong wind, or that He should produce a great 
number of frogs or boils, or send darkness; but it is a 
more wonderful thing for God to make men and women 
and children so that they may understand His com- 
mandments. That is the most wonderful thing in the 
world; and the reason why we should love the Bible 
is not because it tells us of wonderful things like the 
plagues; but because it is telling us always of the most 
wonderful thing in the world, — God making men and 
women and children so that they may understand His 
commandments. 

59. The plagues of Egypt, just the same, and the 
crossing of the Red Sea were wonderful things. There 
is an inscription in Meneptah's tomb which scholars 
think refers to the sudden death of Meneptah's eldest 
son. Supposing an old, old friend of yours, one whom 
you knew to be very good, came to you and told you 
some wonderful things. Would you believe he was a 
good man because he told you wonderful things? Or 
would you believe the wonderful things because he was 
a good man? Well, the Bible is the old, old friend, 
the best book in the world; we do not believe it is a 
good book because it has in it wonderful things; but 
we believe the wonderful things because the Bible is 
so good. If a lot of little boys came round you and 
said, you ought not to believe these wonderful things 
until you can prove absolutely every one of them did 
happen ; you would say, No, I will believe these wonder- 



THE TIMES OF MOSES 37 

ful things because my good friend told me them, and 
I will believe them until you little boys can prove 
absolutely to me that they did not happen. Now^ I want 
to tell you that no little boys, or big men either, have 
ever proved absolutely that any one of the wonderful 
things in the Bible did not happen. 

60. Have you ever wondered why God hardened 
Pharaoh's heart, and how He did it? I would like 
to ask you a question. Did God ever harden your 
heart? Perhaps you say, **no." Well, let me put the 
question another way. Did you ever do anything wrong, 
get .angry, tell a lie, or disobey, and take pleasure in 
it, and never feel sorry for it afterwards? Well, every 
time j^ou do this you are hardening the feelings of your 
heart. And God works with you. You hear God's 
"YES" or "NO," and you may either obey or disobey 
God. When you disobey Him, He hardens your heart; 
when you obey Him, He makes your heart great. God 
did not harden Pharaoh's heart, and then punish him 
for what Pharaoh could not help doing. You may notice 
that the Bible tells us both sides of the question, "God 
hardened Pharaoh's heart," and, "Pharaoh hardened his 
own heart," exactly the same number of times. Pharaoh 
and God worked together. Pharaoh disobeyed and God 
hardened his heart. Moses and God worked together. 
Moses obeyed, and God gave him a great heart. So 
now you know how God hardens hearts, and makes 
great hearts; and how your own heart may be hardened, 
or made great. 

61. Did God give a higher Lesson then to Moses 
than He gave to the pre-historic times, or in the times 
of the Patriarchs? In the first place, God made Moses 



38 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

write the Lessons down in the first four command- 
ments; and then added this higher Lesson in the other 
six commandments, *'Be a Friend to your neighbour 
as well as to God." In your school, no doubt, you 
have rules of order and discipline. We will suppose 
that they are not written out, but that the teacher is 
constantly repeating them to you. One day the head- 
boy of your class stands up before you and reads off 
the rules one by one, in splendid language, and then 
pastes them up on the wall. You would say **Oh, 
the teacher must have helped him.'' So Moses wrote 
down the rules of order and discipline that God had 
constantly repeated to the world and to the Patriarchs, 
and we say, **The Ideas are not those of Moses, but 
of God. God must have helped him." The Ideas of 
order and discipline in the Ten Commandments are far 
above the ability of Moses, and must have been given 
by God, through Moses. 

62. The other laws that we find in the Bible, parts 
of the Book of Exodus, the Book of Numbers, the Book 
of Leviticus, and the Book of Deuteronomy, these other 
laws are regulations for church services, priests' dresses 
and habits, and laws of the land. They are not above 
the ability of man, and are mostly meant for regula- 
tions for the time being. 

63. There is one peculiar and extraordinary thing 
we find in this portion of the Bible. That is, — the ass 
speaking to Balaam. Some scholars have thought that 
Balaam was dreaming at the time. The story changes 
so quickly, Balaam is in a great company of princes, 
— then he is suddenly alone on his ass, a wall on each 
side of him, and the ass speaks, — then again he is with 



THE TIMES OF MOSES 39 

the princes. All so like a dream. Now you have no 
right to say that God could not make the ass speak. 
But I do not think that God would be very angry with 
you if you believed that God made the ass speak to 
Balaam in a dream. 

64. I wonder if you are the sort of boy or girl who 
is fond of an argument. I hope not. But there was 
once a great argument about whether Moses wrote part 
of the Bible or not. Only a few years ago there were 
some men who said Moses could not have done so 
because no one had learned to write when Moses lived. 
Have you ever gone down to the seaside with a spade 
to dig in the sand? Well, you will be surprised when 
I tell you that many wise men dig like that all their 
lives ; but not for shells or fish ; but in Greece and Egypt, 
and all through the East, for writings of the past. And 
it is through them that we know in Moses' day nearly 
everyone wrote, and even in Abraham's day. So those 
who said there was no writing when Moses lived were 
wrong. And for all other arguments, if you could live 
long enough, you would probably find that they will be 
exactly as the Bible says. 

65. What then have we learnt about the times of 
Moses? Just this at least. Israelite history fits in with 
Egyptian history exactly at the time of the Shepherd 
Kings and the Rameses group; we learn this from the 
old kings' tombs and monuments and papyrus sheets. 
Moses wrote on these papyrus sheets, and afterwards 
they were gathered into a book. The Ten Command- 
ments we say cannot be the ideas of Moses or any 
other man; they must be the Ideas of God. We believe 
in the miracles of the Bible because the Bible is so 



40 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

good. We do not believe the Bible is good, because of 
the miracles in it. You may grow hard-hearted as 
Pharaoh; or great-hearted like Moses; you and God 
work together. God has the first say. God says to 
you, *^do good." You have the second say, and it 
depends on whether you wish to be good or bad, whether 
you grow great-hearted like Moses, or hard-hearted like 
Pharaoh. That is what learned men call free-will. 
You might wonder what blackening boots or washing 
dishes has to do with God hardening Pharaoh's heart 
or your heart; but the boy who begins to blacken his 
father's boots, or the girl who begins to wash dishes for 
mother, and keeps on doing other kind things without 
being asked will grow up with a great heart like Moses, 
which God will never harden. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PERIOD OF JOSHUA AND THE 
JUDGES 

66. Moses, as you will remember, led the Israelites 
when they were a nation of slaves out of Egypt. He 
then with great difficulty formed them into a real strong 
nation. He always believed that there was a land 
further on, the land of Canaan, where God intended 
them to settle. But Moses, as you will also remember, 
died before he came to the land, and Joshua took up 
the leadership of the nation. Now I used to wonder 
when I was a boy why God allowed any fighting or 
war in the world, — why He did not just lead the 
Israelite nation without any fighting or war into the 
land of Canaan. And indeed the world would be a 
great deal better without war. Do you think then it is 
God's fault that there is fighting and war in the world? 
Do not ever think that. If you would like to understand 
why there is fighting and war in the world, you must 
try to think very hard over what I am going to tell you. 

67. Have you ever seen that children's game of 
Theatre? There is a stage, and curtain that comes 
down and goes up, and little cardboard actors that you 
pull with strings and wires, which are called puppets, 
and someone reads the play. These puppets do just what 
you want them to do whenever you pull the strings. 

41 



42 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

You could not love those puppets; and they could not 
love you. Now, learn this, that God did not make 
men and women and children like puppets. Because 
He wanted to love them and have them love Him. 
Then, do you remember how you used to make your 
doll do just what you wanted. But what a different 
thing when you had a little baby brother or sister? 
Why baby could move his own arms, could stretch them 
out to you of his own accord. God did not make men 
and women and children as dolls, but he made them so 
that they could move as they liked, and stretch out their 
arms to Him, and love Him of their own accord. Baby, 
we say, has an instinct to love you. So men and women 
have an instinct, as we say, to love God. But baby 
also as he grows up may be naughty and selfish. So, 
then, men and w^omen and children may be naughty 
and selfish. God allows people to choose to be either 
good or wicked and selfish. 

68. It is the same thing with nations. The one 
nation, as we have seen, which chose to be good, and 
stretch forth its arms, as we might say, to God, the 
Israelite nation, that nation God called to take posses- 
sion of the land of Canaan. But if the one nation of 
the Israelites chose to be good, the other nations chose 
to be wicked. Well, if a man tries to be good, God 
will help him to be good. If a man tries to be wicked, 
God will punish him sooner or later. And everybody 
knows this. Even in savage lands, to-day, when mis- 
sionaries arrive they find out that the savages know 
this, and have some way of asking their gods to forgive 
them. Was this war, then, the best thing for the wicked 
nations in Canaan and for the Israelites. The only 



THE PERIOD OF JOSHUA AND THE JUDGES 43 

thing the other nations would recognize was power. 
The laws and the Lessons of the Israelites could not 
alter their wicked ways. God was forming a nation 
to teach the world; and no nation can be formed with- 
out bravery. You must never think that God took 
these other wicked nations, killed them in war, and then, 
because they were wicked, cast them into Hell. We 
have no right to think that way about God. Supposing 
your brothers had smallpox. They would be taken 
away to the hospital. You would know, at any rate, 
this much: they were taken away so that you would 
not get the disease. Whether they will get better or 
not you cannot tell. Now I want to tell you that these 
other nations had habits far worse than smallpox, and 
brought them on by their own wickedness. We know 
this much: God took them away so that the Israelites 
would not get their habits. Whether they will get 
better in God's hospital for wicked people we cannot 
tell; but we may be perfectly sure that God will always 
do the fair thing. One thing more you must remember 
about the wars of the Israelites. They never took any 
of the treasures for themselves. They gave it all to 
God, You may remember how Achan was stoned 
because he kept some of the treasure for himself. 

69. In the Book of Joshua we are first told about 
the crossing of the River Jordan on dry ground, like 
the crossing of the Red Sea. About six hundred years 
ago a piece of a mountain fell into the River Jordan 
making a dam, and it took the waters four hours to flow 
over it. Of course we cannot say that God stopped the 
waters in the same way when the Israelites crossed; we 
only know He did do it in some way. Next we are 



44 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

told that at the blast of trumpets the Walls of Jericho 
fell. I wonder if God sent an earthquake. We do not 
know. Some people think that the blasts of the 
trumpets might have done the damage. Do you know 
that a professor of Cambridge tells us that when the 
first iron bridge was built, a fiddler came along and said 
he could fiddle it down. The workmen laughed. He 
played until he struck the keynote of the bridge, and 
it swayed so violently the workmen begged him to stop. 
Have you ever noticed a piece of furniture sing in a 
room when you strike a certain note on the piano? 
Whether God made the Walls fall by earthquake, blast 
of trumpet, or some other way we cannot tell; we have 
only been told that they did fall. The third wonderful 
thing in the Book of Joshua is Joshua commanding the 
Sun to stand still. This, many think, is poetry, as the 
Bible tells us it was written in the Book of Jasher, 
which most people think was a collection of patriotic 
poems, and it means that the Israelites thanked God for 
giving them light until they conquered their enemies. 
But God could, certainly, if He liked, make the Sun 
and moon and earth, and all the stars, too, stand still. 
A man can stop a machine quite easily, which is many 
times more powerful than himself. God could stop 
the Sun and moon and earth and stars, which are very 
much less powerful than He is Himself. We must 
remember that this is probably Hebrew poetry. You 
have read I suppose in school Tennyson's poem, "The 
Charge of the Light Brigade." There is one famous 
line that runs like this, "Into the Valley of Death, into 
the Jaws of Hell, rode the six hundred." Now he 
did not mean there was a real valley of death and that 



THE PERIOD OF JOSHUA AND THE JUDGES 45 

Hell had jaws. People three thousand years from now 
will probably know much more about death and Hell 
than we do; just as we now know much more about 
the Sun and moon than people in Joshua's time. If the 
people three thousand years from now were to say we 
believed in a real valley of death, and that Hell had 
jaws, they would know very little about the splendid 
way English poetry has of putting things. So we must 
remember that Hebrew poetry had a very splendid way 
of putting things. 

70. But whether God sent an avalanche into the 
waters of the upper Jordan; whether God sent an earth- 
quake under the walls of Jericho; whether God 
lengthened the day for Joshua in some mysterious way; 
we do not know. But we know this much: God did 
these things in some way and each of these three things 
the Israelites thought of as coming from the hand of 
God. They occurred just at the right time. You will 
remember in English History the Spanish Armada. If 
a Bible writer were describing the Armada he would 
write something like this: "And the Lord saith unto 
Howard of EfBngham, I have given unto thine hand 
the Armada, and the King thereof, and the mighty 
men of valor. And ye shall go out, ye men of war, 
and go round about the ships of Spain, but ye shall not 
touch thereof. And I, the Lord thy God, shall smite 
them and they shall flee and I will destroy them." God 
enabled England to conquer the Armada in a mysterious 
way. God enabled the Israelites to conquer the 
Canaanites in a mysterious way. The English writers 
tell us about the wind, and leave out God. The 
Israelite writers tell us about God, and leave out the 



46 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

Wind and earthquake and avalanche. Indeed Queen 
Elizabeth had a medal with this inscription: "God 
blew with His wind and they were scattered." The 
English historians may forget God fought for them soon 
after the danger was over. But the Bible historian 
never forgot God^s work and help. God worked 
a miracle for England. God worked miracles for the 
Israelites. Some day I dare say people will be foolish 
enough to say and write that the Armada could not 
have happened. The Armada was the door to England's 
conquest of the sea. Jericho was the door to the 
conquest of Canaan. 

71. There were two things that used to puzzle me 
when a boy about the Book of Joshua. The first was 
that Achan, who took some of the treasures for himself 
should have his whole family stoned with him. Why 
should the little children be stoned for their father's 
fault? Now right here you must understand that 
Christ had not yet come and taught that we should love 
our enemies. You must not judge the Israelites as if 
Christ had already taught them. They did not know 
any better; and even to-day when a man does some 
wrong we allow it to disgrace the whole family, which 
we certainly should not do. The second thing that was 
a puzzle to me, until I learnt that the Israelites had to 
learn their lessons gradually in God's great school of 
the World, was the family warfare. A murder might 
be committed. The murdered man's nearest relative 
would then try to kill the murderer, and there would 
be a regular family war, lasting for many years. God, 
however, taught Joshua a higher idea of justice whQU 



THE PERIOD OF JOSHUA AND THE JUDGES 47 

He suggested to Joshua to appoint cities of refuge where 
murderers could run to and await their proper trial. 

72. You will remember the Israelite nation was 
divided up into tribes. In the Book of Joshua we are 
told how the Israelites conquered the land, and how the 
land was divided amongst the different tribes. After 
Joshua died there was no regular leader of the nation, 
but when an enemy attacked, a leader arose in the part 
of the country attacked, and he was called a Judge. 
This is how we get the name of the Book of Judges. 
It is not necessary for you to know the names of all the 
Judges, but there are one or two of them you should 
remember. For instance, Ehud. What would you 
think if in war one general would come out with the 
white flag of truce (which as you know means that he 
has a message, and such a flag is never fired at), what 
would you think if that general were to march up under 
that flag to the other general's tent, and while they 
were alone secretly kill him? Why it would be a 
terrible deed. Yet that is what Ehud did. There was, 
of course, no white flag in those days, but he pretended 
he had a secret for the fat King Eglon of Moab. When 
they were alone Ehud murdered him. It was a terrible 
deed. But remember you must not judge the Israelites 
as if Christ had already taught them. The Israelites 
had to learn goodness gradually in God's great school 
of the World. 

73. Then again Deborah and Barak defeat Sisera. 
And you may remember the woman Jael inviting the 
defeated general Sisera into her tent to hide, and then 
treacherously killing him by driving a nail into his 
head. A treacherous act, we say. And Deborah and 



48 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

Barak sang a song that Jael was blessed above all women. 
This was not what God thought; but it was just what 
Deborah and Barak thought, and was just the thing 
they were likely to think, living so many years before 
Christ. 

74. Then Gideon has his cakes consumed by God's 
fire, and his fleece of wool first full of dew while all 
around is dry, and then dry while all around is wet with 
dew. He knew by these signs that God would make 
him free his country. Just as Joan of Arc knew by 
signs and visions that she was to free her country of 
France. Gideon, first of all, told all the cowards to 
go home. Then as he was going to try a stratagem, 
and did not want any slow moving men who would 
lag behind, or fat men who would lose their footing 
going down the mountains, and roll down into the 
enemy's camp, he put them through the test of sipping 
the water. He took three hundred nimble warriors 
with a torch, pitcher, and trumpet each. The trumpets 
blew, the pitchers were broken, the torches flashed, and 
the enemy in their confusion and surprise slew each 
other. 

75. Then Jephthah, going out to fight, made a 
foolish vow that he would sacrifice to God the first 
thing that came forth out of his house when he arrived 
back if he gained the victory. Alas! it was his 
daughter. Jephthah, we say, should have broken his 
vow, rather than sacrifice his daughter. But in those 
days Jephthah thought differently. It reminds us of 
Herod's promise to Salome, whereby John the Baptist 
lost his head. It ought to warn us against making 
foolish and wild vows and promises. 



THE PERIOD OF JOSHUA AND THE JUDGES 49 

76. Samson was a man who had been given a great 
gift, — the gift of strength. But he used it rather to 
show off than for God. He did freak things with his 
strength instead of using it, say, to lead an army, in the 
days when strength was greatly admired and followed. 
He carried away the gates of Gaza, tied foxes' tails 
together, and set fire to villages, killed a lion, and slew 
a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass, probably 
driving them over a cliff by those in front backing on 
to those behind. The main point is that he "showed 
off," instead of using his strength well for God. Prob- 
ably you yourself have a gift from God, — the gift of 
kindness, the gift of beauty, the gift of learning, perhaps 
the gift of strength. Do you only use kindness just 
when you want? Do you use your beauty or learning 
just to show off? Do you use your strength to bully 
smaller boys? I hope not. I hope you use your kind- 
ness all the day long; use your beauty and learning to 
make people happy and more useful; use your strength 
to protect weaker boys. 

77. Did God teach the people in the time of Joshua 
and the Judges a still higher lesson than he had taught 
Moses? After each Judge had delivered the Israelite 
nation from an enemy we read this: '^The Children of 
Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord 
punished them, then they cried out unto the Lord, and 
the Lord delivered them." They learnt then through 
many hard struggles and battles that the first lesson 
God taught to the World was perfectly true, — God 
punishes wicked people. But they also learnt that if 
they came to God and told Him they were sorry for 
their wickedness, and would try to do better, God would 



50 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

help them. That indeed was a higher lesson. If you 
tell God you are sorry for being wicked, and will try 
to do better, God will forgive you, and help you. It 
is called repentance. God is a forgiving God. 

78. Now during the journey of the Israelites 
through the Wilderness, and during their struggles with 
their enemies, the slaves who had come from Egypt had 
not any opportunity to learn very much education. 
There were no schools or colleges. The great judge, 
Samuel, whom we read about in the ist Book of 
Samuel, formed schools which he called "schools of 
the prophets." These were meant to educate and train 
men as teachers, who would go out and educate and 
train the whole nation. In these schools were studied 
reading, writing, and music, but the chief studies were 
history and the making of poems or psalms. The 
young men were also trained in solemn religious services. 

79. About this time the people wanted a King. 
Had they ever wanted a King before? Yes. They 
asked Gideon, the judge, to be King, and he replied, 
"The Lord shall rule over you." Their great thought 
was that they were unlike other nations, for they had 
God for their King, and he raised up deliverers or 
generals, or judges, at different times to lead them in 
battle. But now they ask for a King like other nations. 
The old man, Samuel, wished indeed they would wait 
until they were fit for a King. Would they not wait 
until a man came forth out of Samuel's schools fit to 
reign? No, Saul, unable to read or write, a warrior 
king only, the tallest man in the kingdom was chosen. 
In one way it was a splendid choice, because Saul lived 
in the centre of the kingdom, and drew all the tribes 



THE PERIOD OF JOSHUA AND THE JUDGES 51 

together around a common centre. Samuel was the 
last and the greatest of the judges. The third great 
name in Israelite history. Abraham kept pure, and 
handed down, through his family, the Lessons of God. 
Moses turned a nation of slaves into a real organized 
nation. Samuel by his schools educated and trained the 
nation. 

80. As to who wrote the Book of Joshua and the 
Book of Judges, we may be pretty sure that these books 
were written first not as a book, but in fragments, 
shortly after the events happened, and some little time 
afterwards gathered together into a book. 

81. The man who wrote your American History 
wrote it in this way. He looked up all the old docu- 
ments, and then wrote them all out in order in his own 
words and style. The men who wrote the Bible looked 
up all the old documents, and put them in almost as they 
were written. For instance, men write Egyptian 
history now from the inscriptions on old tombs and 
monuments and papyrus writings, but they put it all 
down in their own words and style. Now in the Bible 
many of these old documents are mentioned by name. 
The Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers xxi. 14). 
The Book of Jasher (H. Samuel i. 18). The Books of 
God and Nathan. The Books of Shemiah and Iddo, 
and many more. So in the Books of Joshua and Judges, 
the old documents were afterwards gathered together 
into a Book. 

82. The time of Joshua and Judges then was the 
fourth class as it were in God's school of the world, 
each class learning a higher lesson. 

Class L The Prehistoric times, before Abraham. 



52 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

Lesson — God punishes bad people and helps good people. 

Class II. The Patriarchs. Lesson — God is a great 
Friend Who speaks to us and to Whom we may speak. 

Class III. Moses. Former Lessons and rules writ- 
ten out in ten commandments, with the extra Lesson 
to treat our neighbour as we would ourselves or God. 

Class IV. The times of Joshua and the Judges. If 
we do evil and repent truly, God will forgive us and 
help us. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE KINGS OF ISRAIEL 

83. The first King of Israel, as you know, was Saul. 
He was a great warrior, and won many battles, and 
brought all the tribes of Israel to fight together for the 
first time since Joshua had led them. But though he 
formed and trained an army, that is not the greatest 
thing in making a nation. Saul made a fine general, 
but did not care much about anything else than war. 
Saul's first mistake was a serious one. The one thing 
that made the Israelites different in war from every 
other nation was the grand idea that all treasure should 
be given to God. After one battle against a very 
wicked nation, a nation probably having foul diseases 
brought on by their wickedness, every trace of which 
must be wiped out or it would spread amongst the 
Israelites, Saul spared the king Agag and the best of the 
cattle for himself. If he had been allowed to do this 
without any lesson that it was wrong, soon the whole 
army would have followed and done the same thing, 
and the nation sunk back to the level of other wicked 
nations. It was very easy for Samuel to see that Saul 
was not the desired king; and it was very easy for 
Samuel to prophesy that another would reign in his 
place. Who? Ah! cannot we imagine that Samuel 
knew of one, David, educated in his schools, perhaps 

S3 



54 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

under his own eye. It did not take King Saul long to 
notice David^s ability and be jealous of him. There 
was something certainly very selfish in SauFs bringing 
the king Agag home with him, as if to say, look whom 
I have captured. Samuel hewed the king in pieces 
before SauFs eyes. Samuel must have thought that 
indeed the nation was going down to the level of the 
other nations before he would do such a thing as that. 
Remember that God takes the wicked people into his 
future-life hospital, and that it was to prevent habits 
and wickedness being caught by the Israelites that the 
whole army of the enemy had to be destroyed. 

84. The second King of Israel, as you know, was 
the great hero, David. There are three things about 
David that you ought to know. First and by far the 
most popular one, no doubt, with you, is that David 
was a hero. Even in boyhood he met and conquered 
before the whole army the great clumsy giant Goliath; 
clumsy indeed if you read the account of his heavy 
arms. He must have staggered along, and slight nimble 
David could have jumped from side to side and escaped 
his slow but terrible sword blows. Then when David 
had to leave Saul's court he lived a hero life in the woods 
with his faithful men. Like a Boy Scout he crept past 
the outposts one night, and crawled into SauPs very 
tent, and took his spear. He cut off a part of Saul's 
coat in the cave. He pretended to be mad when he was 
captured once. He certainly made a fine scout. He 
was every bit as good a general as Saul, and his men 
would do almost anything for him. It is not because 
he was a good general and scout that he is called by 
the Bible writer a man after God's own heart. 



THE KINGS OF ISRAEL 55 

Secondly, David was a great sinner; he was a murderer, 
for he told his general, Joab, to place Uriah in a 
dangerous position, so that he would be killed, and so 
that David might marry Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. That 
was certainly not why David was a man after God's 
own heart. But David, with his great sins, always 
turned and asked God to forgive him. Many of the 
Psalms of David were written during these times of 
sorrow for his sins. Here indeed was a great lesson for 
the nation. See the King bowed down with grief over 
his sins. God's fifth great lesson taught to the hero and 
sinner, David, *^God would rather have no sin, but once 
a sin is done, God wants a man to be really sorry for 
It." Or in other words, **The worst sin for ourselves 
is a sin which we are not sorry for." "Once get into 
the way of not being sorry for your sins and you grow 
worse and worse." 

Thirdly, David as a King looked to God always and 
tried to rule, not as he himself would like to rule, but 
as God would like him to rule. That is why, I think, 
the Bible writers say that he was a man after God's 
own heart. 

85. Solomon followed David as king. He was 
chiefly noted for his luxury and wealth and glory, — 
Solomon in all his glory, as we sometimes remember 
him. Although God gave him a wonderful gift of 
wisdom and judgment, he slowly grew wicked and be- 
came something like a bad Sultan of Turkey. The 
Bible tells us he had a great many wives, and they turned 
him to wickedness. He forgot the lesson that David 
learnt, "the worst sin for ourselves is a sin we are not 
sorry for." 



S6 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

86. The great good of SamuePs schools was seen 
in the reigns of David and Solomon. Education and 
writing and poetry were being learnt by many. In 
these reigns we have the beginning of those great poems 
which led to the compiling of the psalms and other 
great books of poetry found in the Bible. You should 
know something about poetry. There are three kinds 
of poetry. Heroic, relating the events of heroes. 
Lyrical, relating the sorrows and hopes of men or 
nations. Dramatic, relating events by making different 
characters speak as in a play. In your reading at school 
of poets, Milton wrote heroic poetry, Tennyson wrote 
lyrical poetry, Shakespeare wrote dramatic poetry. In 
the Bible the heroic poems are only fragments, such as 
the song of Deborah, in the Book of Judges, 5th chapter. 
Lyrical poetry is seen in the Psalms, Song of Solomon, 
and Lamentations of Jeremiah. Dramatic poetry in the 
Book of Job. 

87. When you go to church, perhaps the happiest 
time you have there is when you are singing the hymns. 
You pick up your book and find the number, and you 
are glad the church has a hymn-book. Now I want to 
tell you that David started to make a hymn-book for 
the Israelites when he began to compose the psalms. 
David did not compose all the psalms or hymns, but it 
was always called the hymn-book of David, or the 
psalms of David. You remember the three divisions 
of time; the kings before the captivity, the times of the 
captivity, the times of the restoration under Ezra and 
Nehemiah. Many psalms were written by David, some 
were written under the kings before the captivity, many 
during the captivity, and some during the restoration. 



THE KINGS OF ISRAEL 57 

If you had thought before that the psalms were all 
written by David, being used to the Church of England 
prayer book or the Presbyterian psalm book, turn up 
the psalms in your Bible and see the headings over them. 
For instance. Psalms 73 to 83 are psalms of Asaph. 

The Psalms were divided into five books, the last 
psalms in each book being 41, 72, 89, and 106 and 150. 
All these have almost the same endings: **Blessed be 
the Lord, amen and amen, praise ye the Lord." David 
probably composed Books L and IL, and many psalms 
in Book V. 

88. There are a few interesting things which, 
perhaps, you would like to know about the Psalms. If 
you look carefully in your Bible you will find any 
amount of musical instructions. In fifty-five Psalms 
there may be found instructions to the chief musician. 
For instance, Psalm 4, **To the chief musician on 
Neginoth," which means on stringed instruments. 
There are about fifteen diiferent instructions to the chief 
musician. The Psalms 120, and 122 to 134, are thought 
to be the great processional hymns that the choir sang 
as they went up into the Temple, on the occasion of the 
three great Jev^^ish feasts. 

The long Psalm, 119, is strangely divided into sections 
of eight verses each, every section and each line in ft 
beginning with the Israelite or Hebrew letters of the 
alphabet. Verses one to eight in the first section have 
every line beginning with the Hebrew "A.'' Verses 
nine to sixteen in the second section, have every line 
beginning with the Hebrew "B." And so on right 
through the Hebrew alphabet. 

89. Have you ever gone into a large cave, and called 



58 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

out and heard the echo come back. Well, God called 
his Great Lessons out to the World, and in the Psalms 
has the echo of these come from the people of the world 
back to God. For in the Psalms the Israelites told God 
that they knew He punished the wicked and helped the 
good. Psalm i : **Blessed is the man that walketh not 
in the councils of the ungodly." **He shall be like a 
tree planted by the rivers of water." ^'The way of 
the ungodly shall perish." They told back to God, or 
echoed back, the second lesson that God is a good friend. 
Psalm 3: "I cried unto the Lord with my voice and 
he heard me." We must do the same unto our neigh- 
bour. Psalm 28: "Save thine people and bless thine 
inheritance; feed them also and lift them up for ever." 
Repent truly and God will help, and the worst sin for 
myself is the sin I am not sorry for, is written on nearly 
every page of the Psalms. 

Of the great temple at Jersualem not one stone was 
left upon another, but the wonderful hymns of the 
Jewish worship still continue the most wonderful and 
helpful songs of men to God. We now turn from the 
Psalms to another book of poetry. 

90. Have you ever read in your school any of the 
plays of Shakespeare. Take Hamlet, for instance; you 
know Hamlet is divided up into acts and scenes, and 
has characters which speak. And there is a great ques- 
tion asked in **Hamlet," Is it better to live through 
trouble or kill yourself? "To be, or not to be, that 
is the question." "Hamlet" is called a drama. Now 
the Book of Job in the Bible is a drama. Not that Job 
never lived, but that around his life a drama was written. 
For the Book of Job can be divided up into acts and 



THE KINGS OF ISRAEL 59 

scenes and characters, and it asks a great question, "Why 
IS there so much trouble and sickness in the world?'* 
When the Book of Job was written we cannot tell; 
some people think it was written in the time of Solomon. 
We will try and put it down in acts and scenes. It 
was never acted. 

Act I., Scene i. — Satan asks leave from God to see 
if Job will be righteous if he loses his wealth. God 
gives permission, but Job himself must not be touched. 

Scene 2. — Job loses his wealth and his children, but 
blesses God. 

Act II., Scene i. — Satan again asks leave from God 
to afflict Job himself. God gives permission, but Job's 
life must not be taken. 

Scene 2. — ^Job in the corner of his tent afflicted with 
boils. Three old friends come to see Job, and tell him 
he must have done some terrible secret sin, for the wicked 
never have wealth and health. Job says the wicked 
very often have wealth and health, and the good very 
often have poverty and sickness, and he has done no 
terrible secret wicked thing. Then a young man comes 
in, and tells them all that they do not know what they 
are talking about. "God sees your wicked sin, Job," 
says the young man, "and is whipping you in order to 
make you better." 

Act III. — God Himself speaks to Job. These things 
are mysterious beyond your knowledge. Put your trust 
in Me, says God. 

Act IV. — Job is restored to health and wealth. 

91. In the first Book of Kings, the 4th chapter, and 
32nd verse, we read that Solomon spoke three thousand 
proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five. Like 



60 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

the hymn book of the Psalms of David, begun by David, 
and receiving many new additions, so the Book of the 
Proverbs, and the Books of the Song of Solomon, were 
probably begun by Solomon, and completed like the 
Psalms, as time went on. In fact, in the Book of 
Proverbs, you find the different headings of different 
men and composers, just as you found in the Psalms. 
Chapter i. The Proverbs of Solomon, the Son of David, 
King of Israel. Chapter 25, These also are the Proverbs 
of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah, 
copied out. Chapter 30, The words of Agur, the son 
of Jakeh. Chapter 31, The words of King Lemuel. 

92. The Song of Solomon makes, indeed, a beautiful 
poem. There are three principal characters, a beautiful 
affectionate girl, a loving shepherd, and King Solomon. 
The loving shepherd and the beautiful affectionate girl, 
are in love with one another. King Solomon sees the 
beautiful girl, and takes her away to his palace, but she 
remains true to her shepherd lover, and goes back to him. 
That there are plenty of lessons to be gained from the 
Song of Solomon we know, because St. Bernard, founder 
of the St. Bernard breed of dogs in his monastery of 
the Alps, preached eighty-six sermons from it, and only 
reached the third chapter; and one of his monks con- 
tinued the course, and only reached the sixth chapter 
before he died. Probably, the Song of Solomon is made 
up of the best of the Hebrew wedding songs, put 
together so as to show what true love is. 

93. Another great Hebrew poem is Ecclesiastes. 
You can look on the black side of life, says this poem, 
on the worst side of life, yet the conclusion of the whole 
matter is this, ^Tear God, and keep His commandments." 



THE KINGS OF ISRAEL 6 1 

What IS the chief thing to do in Life? To seek wisdom 
and pleasure? No. To seek business or political life? 
No. To seek wealth or moderation in all things? No. 
To seek to be cheerful in the present with a hope for the 
future? Yes. It is the gathered wisdom of the 
Hebrews since the time of Solomon on the great ques- 
tion, What is the chief thing to do in life? 

94. Another great Hebrew poem, or rather collection 
of poems, is the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Each of the 
five chapters is a separate poem. Four of the five poems 
are arranged something like the 119th Psalm, each verse 
beginning with a letter in alphabetical order of the 
Hebrew alphabet. 

95. Two of the books that are very often given to 
children to read in schools are Shakespeare's Poems and 
Bacon's Essays. A few English poems had been written 
before Shakespeare; a few essays on wisdom were prob- 
ably written before Bacon; but Shakespeare is the King 
and model of English poetry; Bacon is the King and 
model of English wisdom. Well, David was the King 
and model of Hebrew poetry, Solomon was the King 
and model of Hebrew wisdom, and the Hebrew collec- 
tions of their best poems and wisdom were gathered to- 
gether under the names of David and Solomon. 

96. So David and Solomon, scholars from the schools 
of Samuel, began the great Hebrew Literature. There 
IS one more book that I want to tell you about. You 
know what a novel is, a story book written for grown-up 
people. When you get to the age that you want to read 
novels, don't read one without asking the opinion of your 
father or mother. Now the Bible, which has books of 



6Z WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

poems and books of wisdom, has also a book which is very 
much like a novel, the Book of Ruth. 

97. When the Judges were ruling Israel, Naomi with 
her husband and two sons, because of a famine, went 
from Bethlehem, their home, to live in a foreign country. 
There her husband and two sons, who had married young 
girls in that country, died. Ruth, one of the son's wives, 
determined to accompany Naomi when she resolved to 
go back to Jerusalem. Once there, Naomi was wel- 
comed, and Ruth went out to obtain work in the fields. 
Into the field of Boaz she went to work, and Boaz was 
related to Naomi's husband. Boaz fell in love with 
Ruth, and told the reapers to leave plenty of food for 
her to gather up. There was a way in those days that 
a lone woman could call on her nearest relative to protect 
her. While he was asleep she was to lie at his feet. 
This Ruth did, and Boaz was quick in his love to tell 
her he would protect her, and also marry her. Boaz 
knew, however, that there was a nearer relative to Ruth 
and Naomi. Meeting him, as was the custom, at the city 
gate, the nearer relative, by taking off his shoe and giving 
it to Boaz before witnesses, gave Boaz the right of pro- 
tection and inheritance. 

98. That Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi really lived, we 
may well believe in the time of the Judges, and that it 
was written about the time of David is probable, for 
Ruth's descendants stop at David. It gives us pictures 
of simple religious loving lives, not too high for us to 
follow in our own family life, not too wonderful for us 
to follow in the common hardships of our life. 

99. Skins of animals have been used for a great 
many things. Furs and deer-skins are used now for 



THE KINGS OF ISRAEL 63 

dress, and skins have always been used more or less for 
dress. But skins well polished up were probably used 
from David's time onward to write upon. In Abraham's 
time, he would use clay bricks, Moses would use the 
papyrus plant of Egypt, or stones, and perhaps skins. 
But from Samuel's schools onward, skins would be used. 
The books were not bound like our books, but rolled on 
two big rollers, like a camera film the size of a rolling- 
pin. As you read the book, you would roll it gradually 
off one roller on to the other roller, and if you were 
polite when you had finished, you would roll it back, so 
that the next person would begin at the beginning. 

100. So God's Great Lessons to His children in the 
world, given to them through all the years of Bible 
history, were first of all, God helps good people, but 
punishes bad people. Second, God is a great friend, 
Whom you can speak to, and Who speaks to you. 
Third, Act towards your neighbour as you would towards 
God. Fourth, If you have done evil, and you truly 
repent, God will forgive you and help you. Fifth, The 
worst sin for yourself is the sin you are not sorry for. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 

loi. I suppose when you are at school, you find it 
very hard learning history. Take for instance — the 
Kings of England, — -when you leave school you only 
remember a few of them, say William the Conqueror, 
John and the Magna Charta, Henry VHI. and Wolsey, 
Elizabeth and the Armada. So it is not necessary for 
you to know all the kings of the two Kingdoms of Israel 
and Judah, but only a few important ones. These are 
the ones I want you to remember, (i) Ahab of Israel, 
because in his reign appeared the great prophet Elijah, 
who handed his mantle to Elisha. (2) Jeroboam II. 
of Israel, in whose reign lived the prophets Amos and 
Hosea. (3) Hezekiah of Judah, because Isaiah, the great 
prophet, lived in his reign. (4) Josiah of Judah, because 
in his reign, as also in Hezekiah's, a great part of the 
Bible was put together. (5) Then came the captivity, 
during which the great prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, 
preached and wrote. (6) Then the return to Jerusalem 
under Ezra and Nehemiah. Two kings of Israel, Ahab 
and Jeroboam II.; two kings of Judah, Hezekiah and 
Josiah; the captivity, and the return to Jerusalem. 

102. Ahab grew into a wicked king, being led on 
by his wicked wife Jezebel who, being the daughter of 
the King of Tyre, brought with her the horrible worship 
of Baal. The schools of the prophets, begun you will 

64 



THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 65 

remember by Samuel, had grown in numbers, but Jezebel 
brought her own prophets of Baal, and tried to kill all 
the prophets from the schools of Samuel. It needed 
strong men to fight against the horrible worship of Baal. 
Elijah and Elisha were then strong men, prophets of the 
Lord, who saved the nation from the worship of Baal. 
We must remember also, that all the other nations 
thought power and pleasure and riches were the best 
things to get; but the Israelite nation had been taught 
that holiness, a good righteous life, was the thing that 
God wanted. Where, indeed, would God's Great 
Lessons have gone that he gave to Abraham, Moses, 
Samuel, and David, if it had not been for these great 
prophets, Elijah and Elisha? 

103. You will probably remember some of the 
wonderful things that Elijah and Elisha did. But right 
here, learn this again about the Bible Vv^hen you are 
youMg, remember it when you grov/ up, that we do not 
believe the Great Lessons of God because of the wonder- 
ful things in the Bible; but we believe the wonderful 
things because of the Great Lessons of God in the Bible. 
Do not worry too much about these wonderful things. 
These wonderful things always remind me of my Geog- 
raphy book at school. I never worried about whether 
men measured the exact distances of every sea and island, 
especially those lands lying round the Poles, they put 
them in as best they could. So 'the writers writing the 
memoirs of Elijah and Elisha wrote them as best they 
could. I do not worry about whether they have every- 
thing exactly accurate. On inscriptions on ten different 
monuments of the Assyrians, there are ten different 
statements about ten different facts in the reigns of ten 



66 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

different Bible kings. No monuments, however, can 
prove the wonderful things. That the Great Lessons 
of God were accompanied by wonderful doings is not 
yery hard to believe. 

104. Jereboara II. lived at the same time as the 
prophets Amos and Hosea, and perhaps Joel. Now 
there are four things about the prophets and their 
prophecies, that I want you to know, (i) You probably 
think it is hard to prophesy. Well, it is not so hard as 
you think. You see a little boy who has on his Sunday 
clothes going home after falling into a puddle of mud. 
You can easily point your finger at him and say, 
"You're going to get it when you get home." You 
are prophesying what he will get, when he gets home. 
If I see a drunken man, I say, "If you don't stop 
drinking you will come to ruin." The prophets of 
Israel said to their nation, "If you do not stop drinking, 
and seeking pleasure, and worshipping idols, you will 
come to ruin." 

105. (2) The prophets spoke and wrote in visions 
or pictorial language. For instance, we would say, 
"There will be war, and the nation will be too weak 
in drink and pleasure, and will be conquered." Amos 
says, "The daughter of Israel is fallen; she shall no 
more rise; she lieth forsaken upon her land; there is 
none to raise her up." Again, "Behold, I raise up 
against you, O House of Israel, saith the Lord, the God 
of Hosts, a nation ; and they shall afflict you." 

106. (3) But the prophet's duty was not so much 
to foretell as to forthtell. He was the setter forth, or 
teller forth, of goodness and holiness. He w^as pointing 
to goodness all through the troublous times of the Kings 



THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 6^ 

and the captivity. Did God give the prophets a higher 
lesson than He had given in previous times? Yes. Be 
righteous and do good, not because j^ou feel compelled 
to be good, but because you want to be good. 

107. (4) The prophets point on to a future when a 
great Prophet and King shall come and rule, which 
prophecy we know was fulfilled in Christ. We must 
not try to make every passage in the prophets point on 
to Christ, but there are a great number of passages that 
certainly proclaim the coming of the great ICing. 

108. You must not think that because the prophets 
are put altogether at the back of the Old Testament, 
that they all lived and wrote together. This is only an 
arrangement to put all the prophets together, and the 
minor prophets are called such because they are shorter 
than the other four. 

109. Amos, Hosea, and probably Joel, lived about 
the time of Jereboam II. Amos was a shepherd who, 
gaining inspiration like David in the fields of the country, 
cam.e into the city and denounced the wicked life there. 
Hosea was a man whose wife became very, very wicked, 
and left him, and would not live with him yet he took 
her back to him after all her wickedness. Every one 
knew about it. Hosea believed that God called him 
through his trouble to be a prophet; so he prophesied that 
the Israelite nation was like his wife, very very wicked, 
but that God would take them back if they would only 
come to Him. Joel lived in a time when there was a 
plague of locusts. He tells the nation they deserve 
such a plague for their wickedness, but that in God's 
good time He would remove the plague. 

no. Hezekiah's reign was noted for the life of the 



68 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

great prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was a great politician as well 
as prophet, and, probably under his direction, Hezekiah 
made a great reformation and improvement in religion. 
I think you would find it very hard if you were to try 
to collect the best of a great preacher's sermons, and 
place them in a book, in the exact order in which they 
were preached. So I dare say the Israelites found it 
very hard to place Isaiah's sermons exactly in order, but 
that they got the best of them together we may feel sure. 
Some people think that from Chapter XL. to the end 
of the Book of Isaiah is a collection of sermons or pro- 
phecies, whose author's names had been forgotten, which 
were put at the end of the prophecies of the greatest of 
all the prophets, Isaiah. 

111. We read in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 25, 
'^These also are the Proverbs of Solomon, which the 
men of Hezekiah, King of Judah, copied out." So there 
was some work done in Hezekiah's reign to get our Bible 
together. Indeed, Isaiah, the prophet and statesman, was 
also a Court writer, for we read in the II. Book of 
Chronicles, the 26th chapter, "Now the rest of the acts 
of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son 
of Amoz write." 

112. The prophet Micah also lived in the time of 
Hezekiah, and was probably a peasant, while the greater 
prophet Isaiah is thought to have been cousin to the King. 
Micah, in his prophecies, lets us know that many docu- 
ments and writings of our Bible were certainly in exist- 
ence. So then the first group of prophets were the 
shepherd Amos, the sorrowful Hosea, the locust prophet 
Joel, the peasant Micah, headed by the royal courtier. 
Statesman and prophet, Isaiah. 



THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 69 

113. The reign of Josiah is noted, because in that 
reign also, there was a reformation. The nation had 
gone back to its old careless way of worshipping, and 
speaking loosely about God. You have often heard of, 
I have no doubt, and perhaps you have helped in, a 
collection to make repairs in your church. Well, Josiah 
made repairs in the Temple, and while making repairs a 
Book of the Law was found. This was probably some 
of the Documents which were afterwards gathered to- 
gether in the Book of Deuteronomy. It had probably 
either been hidden there for security during the careless 
period, or had been lost during that period. It was also 
at this period that the second great prophet of Israel 
arose, Jeremiah. And with Jeremiah are generally 
associated the minor prophets, Zephaniah, Nahum, and 
Habakkuk. Jeremiah lived long enough to see the 
nation taken into captivity to Babylon. He was very 
likely the man who urged Josiah to make his reformation. 
Jeremiah himself tells us how he wrote his prophecies. 
In the 36th chapter he tells us he dictated his proph- 
ecies to a scribe, Baruch; that the King burnt this roll 
the next year ; but that Jeremiah again dictated his proph- 
ecies to Baruch. Jeremiah's life can be gathered from 
his prophecies; and it was a very painful life; but yet 
through trials and tortures he still prophesied. At one 
time he despaired altogether, see chapter 20. He was 
done with prophesying, with the "word of the Lord.'* 
But the Word of the Lord, "was like fire in his bones,'* 
he must prophesy. So ended the third stage of the 
prophets of Israel. 1st Stage, Elijah and Elisha, begin- 
ning in the reign of Ahab. 2nd Stage, Isaiah witK 
Rosea, Joel, Amos and Micah, in the reign of Hezekiah. 



70 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

3rd Stage, Jeremiah with Zephaniah, Nahum, and 
Habakkuk, in the reign of Josiah. 

114. Away in Babylon, the Israelite nation is now 
in captivity. Are there any prophets to speak to them 
in their Captivity? Yes, Ezekiel was the great prophet 
of the Captivity. He comforts the captive nation, tells 
them they will be restored again, and in a series of 
visions describes the re-building of the Temple. 
Ezekiel was the great prophet of the Captivity. 

115. Now we turn to the books of Ezra and 
Nehemiah. These books are not prophecies, but books 
of history like the Book of Kings. In these books we 
learn that Ezra was allowed to return to Palestine, and 
start work on the re-building of the Temple. During 
the Captivity, the scribes of the Israelites had spent much 
of their time in writing out the books of the Bible, such 
as we have now, from the old documents. Ezra is un- 
successful, but Nehemiah attempts the same thing and 
succeeds. During the erection of the Temple Ezra 
again appears and reads before all the people assembled 
the book he has collected from the old documents. This 
time in Jewish history is called the Restoration. 
During this time the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, 
Malachi, and probably Obadiah prophesied; and the 
Book of Esther was written, describing some events that 
happened to the Jews that still remained at Babylon. 

116. Now just a few words about the Books of 
Daniel and Jonah. Some people think that Daniel is a 
sort of historical-story book, like, for instance, Henty's 
**With Wolfe in Canada." If you have read 'With 
Wolfe in Canada," you will remember the hero, a boy, 
discovered and showed General Wolfe the path up the 



THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 7I 

heights of Quebec. Now if Daniel was only a story 
about the times of the Captivity, surely he, the hero, 
would have been the one to suggest the re-building of 
the Temple, and also would have been, as the hero, in 
the living fiery furnace with his three friends. No, you 
may very well believe that Daniel was a real person, a 
real hero, like Joseph, Joshua, David, and the other 
heroes, and a great prophet also. 

117. The Book of Jonah probably is not written by 
Jonah, but is written by a later writer, and refers to an 
event in the life of Jonah. Jonah tries to escape from 
preaching in Nineveh, goes to sea, in a storm ; the sailors, 
thinking he is the cause of the storm, throw him over- 
board; a great fish swallows him and throws him up on 
the shore. He preaches in Nineveh, the people repent, 
God does not destroy them; at which Jonah is angry, 
and he is rebuked by God. Now the whale swallowing 
Jonah has troubled a great many people. We may be 
perfectly sure that God could have made the whale 
swallow Jonah. Turn to the Book of Jeremiah, the 
51st chapter and 34th verse. There we read, **Nebuchad- 
nezzar, the king of Babylon, hath devoured me, he hath 
crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath 
swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly 
with my delicates, he hath cast me out." Now we do 
not say Nebuchadnezzar must have swallowed the 
prophet Jeremiah. But we say, the prophet is telling of 
Nebuchadnezzar torturing him in an impressive and 
pictorial manner. So God will not be angry with you 
if you believe that the writer of the Book of Jonah is 
telling you in an impressive and pictorial manner, after 
the example of Jeremiah, that Jonah could not get away 



72 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

from the command of God to go and preach at Nineveh. 
Indeed, part of the Book of Daniel may be written in 
this style also, especially the account of Nebuchadnezzar 
turning into a beast and eating hay. 

1x8. Let us review now the writing of the Bible. 
First, in the Pre-historic age on tablets of clay up to 
Abraham. Second, the great Leader and Writer, 
Moses, Moses handed on to Joshua something more 
than just the leadership of the army. In Exodus, 
chapter 17, verse 14, Moses is told, after a battle, to 
write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in 
the ears of Joshua. And in Joshua, chapter 8, verse 35, 
"There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, 
which Joshua read not before all the congregation." 
Third, then there came Samuel's schools. Here, prob- 
ably, the Lessons from the clay tablets, and the docu- 
ments of Moses, were put together, with a few of the 
early battle songs. Fourth, the great beginning of the 
Psalms and Proverbs and poems under David and 
Solomon. Fifth, during the Captivity, a further writ- 
ing out and collecting together of documents, under 
Ezekiel and Ezra. Sixth, after the return a long final 
gathering together of the documents and books, and a 
refusal to include certain other writings, which we call 
the Apocrypha, which may be found in large Bibles 
between the Old Testament and the New Testament. 

119. How were these documents kept? ist, in 
Abraham's family. 2nd, Moses delivered the writings 
to the Priests, the tribe of Levi, for safe keeping. Then 
during the Kings these documents were evidently kept 
in the Temple. Then, under Ezra and Nehemiah, there 
was formed a school of scribes or writers, who gradually 



THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 73 

gathered together, edited, and placed in a finished form 
the Old Testament as we have it to-day. 

1 20. So we now come to the end of the first part of 
God^s message to the world, the end of the Old Testa- 
ment. I hope you know a great deal more now about 
God's message to the world, God's Word to us, than 
you did before you began to read these chapters. But 
the greatest message from God we have still to hear 
about, when we come to the New Testament, and the 
life and teachings of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE GOSPELS— I 

121, Everybody that you know has a name. Some 
people have two or three names. John Smith has two 
names. John is the Christian or first name, Smith the 
surname. But sometimes a man is known better by his 
title. For instance, you probably do not happen to know 
of William Smith, but William the Conqueror you prob- 
ably know something about, William being the first name 
and Conqueror being the title. So in the Gospels, John 
the Baptist had his first name John, and his title Baptist, 
because he went about baptising. So with the precious 
name of Jesus Christ, Jesus was the first name and 
Christ was the title, meaning God's Anointed, God's 
chosen, God's Messiah, Messiah being in the Hebrew 
language the same as Christ. So now you know that 
Christ means the anointed and chosen King sent down 
into the world by God; God's chosen and anointed King 
the title that was given to Jesus. 

122. I suppose the most joyful time in your young 
lives, children, is Christmas time. Well, you probably 
know by this time that Santa Claus is the same sort of 
being as a fairy. Fairy stories and Santa Claus are good 
for little children, because in fairy stories little children 
grow to admire good deeds and to hate bad deeds; 
and Santa Claus is very useful in teaching little children 

74 



THE GOSPELS — I 75 

to be good for a present at Christmas time. But by this 
time you have grown out of all that sort of thing, and 
you yourself help to amuse the little children by telling 
them about fairies and Santa Claus. But you know 
also the real reason for Christmas Day is to celebrate the 
birthday of Jesus, and you know that Angels unlike fairies 
are real, though we cannot see them. Now I want to 
tell you that Jesus, or His disciples, left no mention of 
the day of the year in which Jesus was born. They had 
no birthday books in which children and grown-up 
people wrote their names then. Also it took a great 
many years, like the seed growing slowly but steadily, 
to make the civilized people of the world into Christians; 
therefore it was not until five hundred years after Jesus 
was born that men began to reckon the years from His 
birth. We now think that they made then a mistake of 
about four years, and really they got very close to it, 
considering they were inspired more by piety than by 
scientific accuracy. Indeed, the early members of the 
Church had placed it two or three years before the present 
date. You will remember Herod the Great killed all 
the little children when the wise men from the East 
told him about the King, Jesus. Now Herod the Great 
died, according to historians and documents of that time, 
four years before the year one, according to our present 
counting. Therefore, we say Jesus was born about the 
year five or six B.C. It seems strange to say this, but it 
fits in exactly with the Gospels and Roman History. 
The day of the year, December 25th, is just a day set 
apart as the Birthday of Jesus, for neither Jesus Himself, 
nor His disciples, tell us anything about the day on which 
He was born. 



76 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

123. You will remember that wise men and shep- 
herds came to see Jesus when they heard He was born. 
The Wise Men followed a star. The Shepherds saw a 
great light and Angels. I wonder if you like making 
maps at school, putting the rivers in like snakes, and the 
mountains like caterpillars. Well, the Wise Men were 
looking probably at a map they had made, but there were 
no rivers or mountains on their map, for it was a map 
of the stars of the sky. On their map the sky was 
divided into sections, each section for a different part of 
the world, and if anything strange happened in that 
section of the sky representing some country, then they 
believed something strange would happen in that country. 
Something strange we may suppose had happened in that 
part of the sky which represented Palestine, and God 
led them to Jesus through their study of the stars, and 
they were guided by a star to Jerusalem, and then to 
Bethlehem. 

124. The Shepherds were led to Jesus by a Great 
light and Angels. We think this is very wonderful. So 
it is, very wonderful to us, but it is not wonderful to 
God. Have you ever seen a searchlight, one of those 
great lights that flashes for miles around? Well, if you 
shone a searchlight from the deck of a big ship on to a 
savage island it would be a wonderful thing to the 
savages, but it would not be a miracle for us, but just 
the ordinary thing. So God's light of Angels flashing 
on the shepherds is a wonderful miracle to us, but it is not 
such to the Angels. It is a wonderful thing for us, but 
it is very easy for God. 

125. Sometimes it used to pain me when I thought 
of wicked Herod killing all the little baby boys, when 



THE GOSPELS — I ^^ 

he heard all about the new King that had been born. 
But probably only those in Bethlehem were killed, and 
Bethlehem was a small town, so that the number of baby 
boys actually killed was probably only about twenty. 
But the little boy King, born in a manger and cradled 
in a stall, was saved; and worked as He grew up at the 
carpenter's trade. It was not a large or magnificent 
home that he had, but we may be sure that it was a good 
and happy home. We are told that he was obedient to 
his parents ; and oh ! what a lot there is in that, when we 
come to think of it. Those, indeed, who really learn to 
be obedient to their parents when young, generally find 
it easy to be obedient to God and duty when they are 
grown up. Can we not see Jesus also working in the 
carpenter's shop; there is the beam and the mote that He 
afterwards spoke of; there are the nails and wood, just 
such nails and beams of wood that afterwards were used 
on the Cross. I wonder what work you have to do, 
reader of this book, school work, factory work, office 
work ; do it at any rate, as Jesus worked of old, for your 
parents, for your family, and for God. 

126. Of the life of Jesus from His babyhood to the 
age of thirty we have only one glimpse, the journey up 
to the Temple of Jerusalem, when He was found asking 
hard questions of the Doctors of learning. The writing 
of the lives of great men has only become the usual thing 
within the last one hundred and fifty years. The only 
lives of the great men of the olden days of Greece and 
Rome were written by Plutarch, and until quite recently 
it was not usual to make mention of their boyhood. 
Very Iktle, for instance, is known of the life of Shakes- 
peare. The Gospels do not give us a complete life of 



78 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

Jesus, but give us the great points in His life, and declare 
His teaching. In fact, the last verse of St. John's Gospel 
tells us, * 'There are also many other things which Jesus 
did, the which if they should be written, every one, I 
suppose that even the whole world itself, would not 
contain the books that should be written." So we hear 
very little about the childhood of Jesus. 

127. Perhaps you would be interested to know 
whether Jesus had a Church, like you have, to go to; 
whether He had a Bible to read; and a clergyman. 
Well, Jesus as a boy certainly had a Church to go to, 
but in those old Jewish times they called the places of 
worship Synagogues, except the big one at Jerusalem 
which they called the Temple; just as now there are 
Churches and Cathedrals. Then Jesus also had a Bible 
to read, and His Bible was the Old Testament. It was 
often read to Him in His happy home, and He studied it 
very often. His clergyman was called a Rabbi. 

128. We will imagine now that Jesus is going to 
Church. He takes His seat in the back row with the 
other boys behind the seats of the chief worshippers. 
Do they start with a hymn or prayer? Probably with 
one or the other, as you will remember the Jewish 
hymn-book is the Psalms of David. Lessons were read 
from the Bible, the Old Testament, which was divided 
up into three parts; the Law up to the Book of Joshua; 
the Prophets which included most of the prophets and 
Joshua, Samuel and Kings; and the Poetical Books. 
Then there were sermons also. That Jesus must have 
paid very great attention at the Services we may feel sure. 
I think as He sat there in the Synagogue Service He 
must have felt that He would like to be able Himself to 



THE GOSPELS — I 79 

teach people, and help them to a greater knowledge of 
God, and show them how to live a good life. 

129. Boys may be divided into two classes; a great 
many who don't very much care what they are going 
to be when they grow up; and a few who have made 
up their minds to be something, a doctor or engineer, 
or something else like that. 

Boys get all sorts of ideas about what they would 
like to be. As a boy, I wanted to be a coal-cart driver; 
I suppose if I were a boy now I would want to be a 
motorman on a street-car. But there are a few boys 
who, when they are quite young, make up their minds 
they are going to be doctors and cure patients, engineers 
and build bridges, clergymen and help others to live 
good lives, and go on ever growing in earnestness to 
be such. It is these boys who aim high when they are 
young, and stick to their aim, that God guides to great 
achievements for others. We may easily believe then 
that Jesus, when a boy, aimed high and wished to be of 
some great help to others in teaching them and show- 
ing them how to live a good life. That another boy 
of the same time, and in the same land, was also aiming 
high we know by thdi life of John the Baptist. A 
cousin of Jesus, we can hardly doubt but that the two 
had often spoken of their aims and belief. 

130. During the eighteen years in which Jesus 
worked in the carpenter's shop till he reached the age 
of thirty we may easily believe He had His mind made 
up to do some great good to His fellow beings. Know- 
ing His Bible, the Old Testament, He dwelt, as many 
did around Him, on the promise which the Prophets 
had given of a King to come, a true servant of God. 



80 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

His cousin, John the Baptist, a strenuous, determined 
boy and man, might have aided Jesus into the belief 
that He, Jesus, was the promised king. His mother, 
also, would help Him in that belief in her own mother's 
loving way. At any rate, John the Baptist was 
convinced that the King was Jesus, and the Kingdom 
of God was coming really through Him. Jesus was 
baptised by John, and they saw a sign from Heaven, and 
heard the voice of God saying, **This is my beloved 
son in Whom I am well pleased." 

131. Therefore, Jesus believed Himself to be the 
promised King, the Messiah whom the Jews expected. 
There was need. He thought, however, for great pre- 
paration, and so Jesus went out into the Wilderness 
for forty days. The Bible tells us He was fasting, 
meaning perhaps He fed Himself upon the roots to be 
found there. But was He only fasting and doing 
nothing else? I think He was very busy at something 
else. He was probably forming up in His mind the rules 
of His Kingdom, or as we older people would put it, 
the principles of His form of righteousness. These He 
afterwards gave when He preached the Sermon on the 
Mount, and enlarged on them in His individual talks, 
and illustrated them by His parables. Out there in the 
desert, then, we see Him studying how in the plainest 
and best language He may give His ideas to the people 
of the world. A man getting rich is tempted to be 
mean and selfish. A man making a success is tempted 
toward a selfish pride. A man starting a good move- 
ment is tempted to accomplish it hastily by lower means. 
Rich, successful, good men are all tempted to lowness 



THE GOSPELS — I 8l 

of character, just as poor, unsuccessful, and unambitious 
people are tempted, every man according to his life. 

132. So Jesus was tempted as He sat in the Wilder- 
ness making out His rules of righteousness. Do you 
think the Devil came to Him with his horns, and his 
tail, and his cloven hoof? Do you think that was the 
way the temptation came to Him? No, I feel sure 
that was not the way of it, for He was tempted just as 
we are. Supposing you were in the house all alone, 
and you were tempted to steal some jam, or money out 
of your mother's purse. Does the Devil come to you 
with horns, and tail, and cloven hoof? No, I should 
think not; why, he would scare you so, that you would 
be afraid to do anything wrong. Learn this and never 
be afraid in the dark, the Devil will never appear to you 
with horns, and tail, and cloven hoof. But temptation 
will come to you by suggestion. So as Jesus sat in the 
wilderness of old, looking at those curious white stones 
to be found in Palestine, which travellers assure us look 
just like the little white bread cakes of the Jews, the 
temptation came to Him, — turn these into bread, if 
you are the Messiah you can do it. "And when the 
tempter came to Him, he said, If thou be the Son of 
God, command that these stones be made bread." 

133. Then, too, if you are going to school one 
morning the temptation may come to you to go out 
into the fields to pick flowers, or to the brooks to swim, 
or to the river to fish, instead of going to school. Let 
me describe that to you in Scriptural language: "And 
the devil taketh you unto an high mountain and showeth 
you the pleasant meadows, the running brooks, and the 
glassy rivers all in a moment of time, and saith, all 



82 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

this will I give you if you will begin to worship me by 
doing wrong." Just as in the wilderness of old Jesus 
was taken in imagination to see all the kingdoms of 
the world given to Him as king, if He would only bow 
down to go about His great work in the wrong way. 

134, There is always a right way and a wrong way 
of doing a thing. For instance, you have to pass an 
examination. The right way is to study well and pass 
it. The wrong way is to cheat. Now Jesus had before 
Him the founding of His laws of righteousness and the 
Kingdom of Heaven. He was tempted to begin His 
Kingdom in the wrong way. Throw yourself down 
from the pinnacle of the Temple was the suggestion. 
Come sailing down from there unhurt, and people will 
worship you as an angel or a god. That would have 
been the wrong way, because God wants us to know 
Him and think of Him, not as a God of Miracles, but 
as the God of Goodness and Love. Supposing you are 
a boy, and there are some boys at a boarding-school who 
are learning the bad habit, for boys, of smoking. You 
make up your mind to stop them of the habit. One 
night you rub sulphur from matches on your hands and 
then go through the dormitories in the dark, rubbing 
your hands together, thus making small flames of fire. 
Then you tell the boys (who do not know how you did 
it) that you know if they are not careful and stop 
smoking they will have flames like those inside of them; 
— it might frighten a few for a little while; but the 
desire to smoke would still be there. On the other hand 
if you pointed out to one or two first of all that if they 
stopped and helped you to break the others of the habit, 
(for the little boys will soon follow smoking, you 



THE GOSPELS — I 83 

would say, and for the sake of others as well as for 
themselves, as for them after all, smoking is only pre- 
tending to be a man), there would more likely be a 
change from smoking; — that is to say, if you went at 
it quietly, putting forward the serving and helping of 
others as well as self, instead of going at it quickly, not 
caring for the reason why they should change. 

135. It is the reason why we are good that matters, 
or as we older people would say, it is the motive or the 
spirit in which a thing is done. Jesus, out there in the 
wilderness, chose the quiet method of goodness and 
love, beginning with a few, even twelve, in the serving 
and helping of others, though He was often tempted 
to begin the wrong way suddenly, with a great number 
by force and wonderment; "not by might, nor by 
power, but by my spirit saith the Lord." 

136. Learn this much then about temptation, (i) 
In this world you will be tempted. (2) Temptation 
is not sin. You may be tempted to steal money, that 
is temptation; but it is sin when you take it. (3) Not 
to take the money, and yet still to wish to take it is a 
first step towards Heaven and happiness here, but it is^ 
only a first step. (4) To grow so that you do not even 
desire to take the money is to really conquer the tempta- 
tion, and is a real taste of Heaven and happiness, and 
IS religion according to the rules of righteousness laid 
down by Jesus. (5) God grant you may never grow 
in any sin, so that, although you desire to give it up, 
you do not seem to be able to; for that is a taste of Hell; 
and only the constant serving of God in the helping 
of others will save you from destruction. 

137. Was God giving Jesus then a higher lesson 



84 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

to give to the world than He had given in Old Testa- 
ment times? Yes, indeed, a much higher and grander 
message and lesson. What was it? Ah! Jesus was 
to be a living and perfect example of a perfect person. 
He was to teach us the absolute rules of righteousness. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE GOSPELS— II 

138. The Rules of Righteousness are given to us 
pretty clearly by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and 
made plainer, if possible, by His teaching on different 
occasions, and illustrated for us in His parables. The 
Sermon on the Mount may be found in St. Matthew's 
Gospel in chapters 5, 6, and 7. Some think that St. 
Matthew has here gathered together in a group the 
most important of the Rules of Righteousness, and that 
Jesus did not preach the Sermon all at once. Others 
think that Jesus preached a great deal more in His first 
sermon than what is written in St. Matthew as the 
Sermon on the Mount, and that St. Matthew has only 
written down the most important matters. Be that as 
it may, the Sermon on the Mount as recorded by St. 
Matthew is not only the greatest sermon ever preached, 
but it puts forward the very highest rules that we could 
possibly follow in our lives. 

139. There are three rules of righteousness that I 
wish every boy and girl would learn from the Sermon 
on the Mount and the life and teaching of Jesus, so 
that when they grow up they would make people around 
them happy and peaceful, i. Self-sacrifice. What is 
self-sacrifice? Well, supposing you were a great athlete 
and leader in your school. You are captain of your 
football team, When the first match is played you 



86 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

decided not to play, but put a weaker player on the 
team, would that be self-sacrifice? No, that would be 
shirking your duty. But supposing a boy got hurt and 
someone had to take him home after the game and miss 
the supper provided for the two teams, and you offered 
yourself as the one to take him, would that be self- 
sacrifice? Yes. If you went to college and did not 
strive to come head of your year when it was possible 
you might do so, would that be self-sacrifice? No, 
again it would be shirking your duty. If, however, 
there were prizes of money offered, and you knew there 
were many students who needed the money, and, 
although you knew you had a good chance to take the 
prize, you refused to try for it, because you had plenty 
of money, would that be self-sacrifice? Yes. Again, 
when out in the world seeking your own livelihood 
should 5^ou desire to be a great politician, or a great 
merchant, or a great doctor, judge or bishop? Why, 
yes, because, if all the good men refused to take these 
positions, they would be shirking their duties, and the 
scamps and scoundrels would take them. But all through 
your life wherever it is placed, if you begin with the 
weaker boys at school and the poor students at college, 
you will find plenty of opportunity to practise self-sac- 
rifice according to the Rules of Righteousness laid down 
by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. 

140. Jesus Himself did not give up the title of 
King and the power of a king, and allow some poor 
man to take His title and power, but He used His 
power and position and office for the good of others. 
Whether you in the future will dig drains or rule an 
empire you will have a circle in which to practice the 



THE GOSPELS — II 87 

acts of self-sacrifice that you should begin to learn at 
school. In the same way God does not give up the 
whole treasures and wealth of Heaven for any- 
one to use as they will; if you have money 
and wealth, and throw it out on to the streets, scoun- 
drels and scamps will be there to pick it up. 
You are to use your wealth and ability for God, 
as near as you can to a godlike way. In the life of 
Jesus, every day we may suppose there were many little 
acts of self-sacrifice, like the washing of the disciples 
feet; His whole life was a life of sacrifice if we believe 
He gave up the glories and residence in Heaven to dwell 
with men in the world; and He performed a great act 
of self-sacrifice when He died rather than give up his 
teaching. So in your life, every day there should be 
many little acts of self-sacrifice; your life should be 
one great life of humility no matter what high position 
you may reach, and there may be two or three occasions 
when you can perform a great act of self-sacrifice, — 
perhaps one occasion when you may die to save others. 
141. The second rule. Turning the other cheek 
means never being revengeful, always forgiving. But 
being always forgiving does not mean that there should 
be no punishment. It is true that Jesus said that we 
should forgive our brother seventy times seven times, 
but we may forgive him and yet we may have to punish 
him. If your small brother began to steal things from 
you, you might forgive him and not punish him, but, 
if he took advantage of your forgiveness and stole all 
the more, it would be necessary to have him punished, 
so that he would not grow up a thief. But you would 
have him punished and yet feel sorry for him and for- 



88 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

give him and hold no revengeful thoughts. The 
highest stage of this rule is, as Jesus has told us, **love 
your enemies." 

142. The third rule is a different one from the 
other two. It has not so much connection with what 
you do as with what you think. Mind your thoughts. 
Keep them pure and good. I used to think when I 
was a boy that after I had said my prayers at night 
until I said them in the morning I might not think at 
all, for God would be displeased. I now know that if 
a boy would make that rule and keep it he would be 
the better boy for it. It is not one of the rules of 
Jesus, but it would help you to keep that rule of Jesus 
which tells you to be pure in word and thought and 
deed. And oh! you will find it harder and harder as 
you grow up to keep this rule. 

143. So these are the rules in the Christian life, 
self-sacrifice and humility, no revengeful but rather 
forgiving thoughts, as few bad and impure thoughts as 
possible. Jesus taught these in the Sermon on the 
Mount, showed how they were to be followed in His 
life, repeated them in His teaching, illustrated them in 
His parables. 

144. You know that when you show a book to your 
little brother or to some little child the thing he under- 
stands most about it is the pictures. His simple un- 
learned mind can understand the pictures when the read- 
ing and the words are too hard for him. So, in the 
teaching of Jesus, some of the words and ideas are hard 
for simple minds, but the parables are like pictures, they 
illustrate the teaching of Jesus. 

145. Jesus teaches in His parables these three 
things: (i) The Jewish church must change into the 



THE GOSPELS — II 89 

Kingdom of God. The Jews were given a great work 
to do in the world, like labourers in a vineyard. Every 
now and then, God, the owner of the vineyard, had 
sent his servants, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and 
they had been treated badly. Now, in the person of 
Jesus, God sent His Son, and they would not listen to 
Him but would kill Him. 

146. (2) The Kingdom of God would come slowly 
but surely. Like the seed in the ground which in 
time grows up into a tree, or the leaven which leavens 
after a while the whole lump, so we can see that Jesus 
taught that the Jewish nation's great men had been 
servants of God, and had delivered God's messages and 
lessons, but that the Jews had treated them badly, and 
so God was going to cast them out from being his 
chosen race; a Kingdom of Heaven was to be set up 
on earth by Jesus, which would grow slowly, but 
surely, in numbers and in goodness. 

147. (3) God is calling you into His Kingdom. 
His call is like the sower scattering his seed. Is your 
life like a path through a field where all sorts of evil 
thoughts are passng? Is it like a rock, hard and selfish, 
so that no beautiful and unselfish actions ever grow 
there? Are all good intentions choked by pleasure and 
laziness like thorns choke seeds? Or do you frequently 
do unselfish and kind actions — such growling in your 
life like corn in a good field? Has God given you 
great ability, moderate ability, or small ability? You 
do not know till you try. Great ability or ten talents, 
moderate ability or five talents, small ability or one 
talent, whatever you have in the Kingdom, God wants 
you to use it well for Him. The good Samaritan was 
unselfish, went out of his way to be kind. The 



90 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

Publican when he prayed acknowledged himself a 
sinner unlike the Pharisee who thought he was a very 
good man. The rich fool thought only of his riches 
and prosperity, and in the middle of it all he died and 
lost them all, and had nothing to help himself with in 
the next world. The five foolish virgins were without 
oil for their lamps at the marriage, and were shut out 
from the pleasure which the five wise virgins enjoyed. 
Just as the foolish people who refuse to supply them- 
selves with an unselfish Christian life will find them- 
selves shut out from the pleasures which the wise 
unselfish Christian people enjoy. The rich selfish man 
suffers agony in comparison with Lazarus, the poor 
beggar. But God will not forsake anyone; like the 
sheep that was lost, or the piece of silver that was lost, 
or the prodigal son, who left his home to be very wicked, 
sinners always have God seeking them. There is one 
thing though, which I want you never to think, that is, 
that, like the prodigal son, a man may be as wicked as he 
likes, and then in the end ask God to forgive him, and he 
will be treated best of all in Heaven, like the prodigal 
son in the parable. Remember, only on the first day 
of the prodigal's return was the fatted calf killed, and 
the ring given him, and music and dancing enjoyed. 
That did not happen every day afterwards also. I see 
the prodigal for years after his return going about his 
father's estates with his head bowed in deep sorrow for 
what he had done, — a miserable, miserable life for many 
years. Some day in the far off future the good will 
be divided from the bad like the fisherman keeps the 
good fish and throws away the bad ones. 

148. The merchant sold all he had so that he could 



THE GOSPELS — II 91 

buy the pearl of great price; the labourer found a 
treasure, he sold all he had that he might buy it; so 
unselfish Christian character is the pearl and treasure of 
great price. Perhaps you may say, I wish someone 
would tell me where I could find this pearl of great 
price now, while I am young. Well, I can tell you a 
good way in which you can set about it. I have before 
me on my desk here a book which is called i^sop's 
Fables; I dare say you have read it. Whenever we 
older people think of fables we always think of iEsop, 
and whenever we think of parables, (which are as 
different and as much more true to rules of righteous- 
ness as your ruler in school is truer than distances you 
could guess), we think of Jesus, But I notice after 
every fable in i^Esop's book there is a sentence giving 
the meaning of the fable. Now supposing you were 
to write out in a little exercise book each parable as you 
find it in the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark and 
St. Luke (there are none in St. John's Gospel), and give 
in a sentence at the end of it the meaning of the parable 
in your own words as well as possible. Thus you will 
learn while young to study the Bible in its most interest- 
ing parts ; and to love the teaching of Jesus. 

149. I would like to tell you a few things now about 
the wonderful things Jesus did, which we call miracles, 
such as curing the blind, dividing a few loaves and 
fishes among many people and raising the dead. One 
of the badges which a boy scout may win is, — first aid 
to the injured. Among the many things he will have 
to learn for this is the reviving of an apparently drowned 
person. He puts him on his stomach, face on side with 
tongue out, and presses the small of his back down 



92 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

towards his hip, in regular motions about every five 
seconds until the man begins to breathe again. Now 
if a boy scout was wrecked in a foreign land where 
they knew nothing about such a method, and he revived 
a drowning person, they would then think it a miracle. 
And so it would be a miracle to them, but no miracle 
to the boy scout. So if you look at the miracles of Jesus 
in this way, you will understand that when Jesus raised 
Lazarus and the widow of Nain's son, it was no miracle 
to God or the Angels, or to Jesus, because they knew 
how it was done, but it is a miracle to us and to all 
people for we do not know how it was done. 

150. In the same way it would be very easy for a 
father who was making waves for his son in a bath 
to cease making waves and quiet the water at the word 
of the son. For, indeed, the sea Gennesaret, on which 
Jesus was when the great storm came, was just like a 
small bath to God. And could, you may ask, a father 
make his son walk on the water, for Jesus walked on 
the water? Why, yes, if the father held his son up 
by the hands until his feet just touched the water. So 
God held Jesus up so that His feet just touched the 
water. 

151. Have you ever, when in school, thought how 
wonderful it is when your teacher from his head can 
fill all the scholars' heads with thoughts. When the 
great ship Titanic went down two small words from 
the Captain, ''Be British," filled and fed all those 
people with courage. Five musical instruments well 
played will fill and feed thousands with music. A few 
seeds put in the ground will grow up and feed thousands. 
Jesus did with the loaves and fishes, what musicians can 



THE GOSPELS — II 93 

do With music, men with words, — because he was Jesus 
and knew His power over what we call nature, as a 
man knows his power over music and words. 

152. He also knew his power over disease, and cured 
many of their ailments. Sometimes people are apt to 
say that Jesus made a mistake in calling certain 
diseases "Evil Spirits." He should have called them 
'^insanity" they say. Evil spirits or insanity have never 
been explained, and were not explained, but cured by 
Jesus. You do not explain anything by calling it by a 
bigger word. You do not explain, much less put out, 
a fire by calling it a conflagration. 

153. You know that if a little child trips and 
tumbles forward, and loses its balance, it will surely 
fall to the ground. That is what we older people call 
the Law of Gravitation. But supposing you were to 
catch the child, the power of gravitation is still there 
for you feel the weight of the child on your arm, but 
your personal power in this case is greater and higher 
than the power of gravitation. So the personal power 
of Jesus was greater than the power of disease or death, 
and as we older people say. Nature. 

154. Have you ever studied chemistry? Well, in 
learning chemistry you do not think that your teacher 
is very much greater than you are in chemistry because 
of the experiments he can perform, such as bending 
glass, turning white water into blue, &c. But you 
think he is very much greater than you are because of 
his knowledge of chemistry. So we do not think that 
Jesus IS very much greater than we are in righteousness, 
so much because of the miracles, but far rather because 
of his Knowledge of Righteousness. Like the experi- 



94 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

ments in chemistry, the miracles help us in learning the 
Knowledge of Righteousness. 

155. Except in St. John's Gospel Jesus does not 
call Himself the Son of God, but when He is called 
such He never denies it, but shows often that He 
approves of the title. If you read the Gospels you will 
find that over eighteen times He is called the Son of 
God, and never attempts to correct anyone for calling 
him such. In St. John's Gospel some wonderful state- 
ments of Jesus show that He knew Himself as the Son 
of God. *'God so loved the world He gave His only 
begotten Son." "Dost thou believe in the Son of God? 
Then hast thou seen Him and He it is which speaketh 
with thee." "Before Abraham was I am." "For 
thou lovest me before the foundation of the world." 

156. We also are children of God. But we have 
not lived for ever and ever before with God, though we 
hope to live for ever and ever with Him in Heaven 
after we die. But Jesus has lived always with God. 
He came down on the earth for a little while, a good 
many years ago, to live like you and I live now. This 
is called by what is probably a big and strange word 
to you — Incarnation. Carnal is a word which comes 
in the Bible, and means "flesh." So instead of saying 
"Incarnation," say "In flesh," and you have it. So 
Jesus taught, and his disciples after Him, that Jesus was 
the Son of God Who had lived for ever and ever with 
God, and Who had come "in the flesh" to earth to 
show us how God would have us live. 



CHAPTER X 

THE GOSPELS— III 

157. You will remember the Jewish prophets had 
prophesied that a great King, the Messiah, would come. 
Well, the Jews, after the prophets died got some very- 
grand notions about this King, and began to hope that 
He would lead them out in battle and conquer all the 
other nations and make these other nations slaves. So 
when Jesus, the Messiah, did come, they did not know 
Him, and were so angry because He did not have their 
grand notions that, as you know, they killed Him. 
They were so proud of their nation, they could not 
understand His teaching, which was for all nations. 

158. So Jesus died on the cross in the midst of two 
criminals. Sometimes we read that the people of the 
world were saved by the death of Jesus, by His precious 
blood, but all this just means that the world was saved 
by Jesus. When we say after a great war that our 
country was saved by the death of our soldiers, by the 
shedding of their blood, we know just the same that it 
was by their life and strength that the country was 
saved. So it is not so much by the death or blood of 
Jesus that we are saved (which is another way of 
expressing it) as by His life and strength. 

159. Try to imagine what the world would be like 
if Jesus had not lived and taught. The world would 

95 



96 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

be in a very wicked state. He saved the people of the 
world from great wickedness and pointed to great 
holiness. The more you try to act like Jesus the 
holier you become, and so in one way, at any rate, 
Jesus saves you from many of your sins, and me from 
many of my sins. 

1 60. This is very easy for you and me to see, and 
the next step is almost just as easy for us to see. Jesus 
believed God gave Him this work to do. So we say, 
and are easily able to believe, that God sent Jesus into 
the world to save the world, and He has saved the 
world, not so much by His death, or blood, as by His 
life and strength. 

161. Now we come to something harder to under- 
stand. People had always believed in all countries of 
the world that some sacrifice was necessary for the 
wickedness of the world, and Jesus and the Apostles 
tell us that Jesus Himself was that sacrifice. Now the 
sacrifice could not have been His human death alone; 
nor could the sacrifice have been by His sufferings, for 
the nails of the cross were not harsher than the suffer- 
ings of the martyrs, or sufferings of a life-long invalid. 
Besides in the Gospels there is no word that Jesus 
suffered a harder death than anyone else could possibly 
suffer, nor any word that Jesus suffered greater agony 
under the nails of the cross than anyone else will ever 
suffer. So the sacrifice was not one of human death 
alone or suffering. But we must remember that Jesus 
sacrificed the Glories of Heaven to come down on 
earth, live as a man, and suffer untold agony in the 
Garden of Gethsemane as He thought of the sins of 
the whole world. 



THE GOSPELS — III 97 

162. But the Apostles and religious people have 
always thought and felt that in the death of Jesus there 
was a great mystery, and in some mysterious way Jesus 
offered Himself there especially as a sacrifice for the 
sins of the whole world. God alone will be able to 
explain the mystery to us; meanwhile we say, it is one 
of those things which God has not explained. 

163. This is called the Atonement; — split that word 
up into At-one-ment. You know what we mean when 
we say people are "at one" with each other, they have 
been brought together again. Wickedness had separ- 
ated the people of the world from God; Jesus by making 
people holier brought them nearer to God, made God 
and the people of the world "at one" with each other, 
so it is called the Atonement. 

164. So now you know two big words which people 
use when they speak about the life and work of Jesus; 
in the last chapter Incarnation, meaning the Son of God 
living "in flesh" on the earth, and in this chapter 
Atonement, the making "at one" of God and the 
people of the world. We talk about a boy's schooling 
and his education. Sometimes schooling means his 
school days and education his finished work, but 
schooling and education mean really the same thing. 
So sometimes Incarnation (the coming "in flesh" of 
the Son of God) has meant the birth of Jesus, and 
Atonement (the making "at one" of God and the 
people of the world) has meant the death of Jesus, but 
really Incarnation and Atonement mean the same thing; 
the coming of the Son of God, known in the world 
of men as Jesus, and the saving and bringing closer to 
God of the sinful people of the world. 



98 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

165. As you know, and have often been told, Jesus 
rose from the dead on the third day after He died on 
the Cross. This is called the Resurrection. During 
the French Revolution some people wanted to have a 
new religion, better as they thought than Christianity, 
the religion of Jesus. A great statesman told them, 
with a laugh, that all they would have to do would 
be for one of them to die, announce that he would rise 
again on the third day, and then really do so, and the 
new religion would be made. If you could do that you 
also could begin a new religion. But no one has done 
it except Jesus. And the greater part of the early 
energetic teaching and working of the Apostles came 
just after they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. 

166. When we say that Jesus rose again on the third 
day we must remember that in the old days the Romans 
counted the days at both ends of the calculation. Jesus 
died on the Friday and rose again on the Sunday, on the 
second day after Friday as we would say. But the 
Roman way would be Friday one day, Saturday the 
second day, Sunday the third day, counting in the days 
at both ends of the calculation. 

167. The Jews had always worshipped on a Satur- 
day, on the seventh day of the week, and they do so 
now. Why then was the day for Christians to worship 
changed to Sunday. There is no other reason except 
that Jesus rose on that day and so the Apostles changed 
the day of public worship to the first day of the week. 
When you begin to wonder sometimes how Jesus rose 
from the dead remember that there is no other explana- 
tion for the changing of the day of worship from the 
seventh to the first, from Saturday to Sunday, except 



THE GOSPELS — III 99 

that Jesus rose from the dead on that day, and that the 
Apostles changed the day of worship In commemoration 
of His rising from the dead. 

1 68. I used to wonder if, as Jesus had His wound 
prints in His hands and feet and side, a man who had 
been wounded would have his wounds in the next 
world, and how God would gather together the frag- 
ments of a man who was blown to pieces by dynamite, 
and how it was that our dead people do not leave an 
empty tomb like Jesus did. But I grew to know that 
Jesus showed the wounds and left the empty tomb in 
order thoroughly to convince the Apostles who had not 
understood Him when He told them He would rise 
again; and that a man blown up into small pieces by 
dynamite (like every other person) does not take this 
body he has in the world with him to the next world, 
but is given a new glorified body there, just as a child 
changes from working clothes into party clothes. You 
may tear up the working clothes, if a child has no more 
use for them, or you may lay them away to rest. 

169. Then shortly after Jesus rose from the dead, 
whilst in the midst of the disciples. He ascended up to 
Heaven. Now you ought not to imagine that Jesus 
ascended growing smaller and smaller to their sight 
until He became a dot in the sky to their eyes, for we 
are told that a cloud received Him out of their sight. 
And Heaven is not so much a distance up in the air as 
a feeling of happiness and holiness. Heaven is not so 
much a position up in the sky or anywhere else as it is 
a feeling of happiness and holiness near God and Jesus. 
You may go up as high as the tower of Babel, but you 
will be no nearer God; but if you take some sick friend 



100 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

flowers or toys you will be nearer God and feel very 
happy and holy. 

170. Did Jesus tell us anything further about God 
than Moses and the Prophets? Yes. Moses and the 
Prophets told us God is a King; Jesus, that God is also 
a Father. Jesus also taught that besides God living 
for ever and ever, and Himself living for ever and ever, 
a Third Person whom He called the Holy Spirit, or 
the Comforter, sometimes called the Holy Ghost, had 
lived for ever and ever. God, Jesus, and the Holy 
Spirit have all lived together for ever and ever. The 
Heavenly life that They live is different from our life. 
Jesus told us that though They were three Persons, 
yet They were so closely joined, you might say They 
were One. That is why we sometimes say, "Three 
in One and One in Three." They all Three together 
created the world. They all Three saved the world. 
They are all Three guiding the world. We speak of 
Them as God the Father, God the Son, and God the 
Holy Ghost. 

171. I dare say you would be very puzzled if you 
read the first chapter of St. John's Gospel where we 
read: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word 
was with God, and the Word was God." But it would 
be simpler to understand if you read it this way: "In 
the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and 
Jesus was God." For that is what it means. St. John 
took an expression, "The Word," which had been used 
in his day, and everybody knew meant the method by 
which God had created the world; the Jews had said 
by Wisdom, the Greeks by mere power, but they used 
as the expression of all these "The Word." Just as 



THE GOSPELS — III lOI 

you might say that you passed your examination by hard 
work, or by cleverness, but you could use the expression 
*'by study,'' to cover it all. St. John says, as it w^ere, 
"The Word" is not mere power, or the Wisdom of 
God, but it is Jesus. Therefore, that you may under- 
stand whom Jesus is, in the beginning of my Gospel, I 
will call Him by your well-known expression, "The 
Word." 

172. I suppose you have often played "Hide the 
Thimble," and know how you get hotter and hotter as 
you get nearer the thimble. Well, it may astonish you 
to know that a great many of the wisest men in the 
world are continually playing that game. Not at 
children's parties, or with a thimble; but searching in the 
Bible, and in Bible times, to find who wrote the Gospels; 
for though it was always believed that Matthew, Mark, 
Luke and John, wrote the Gospels, it is only during the 
last hundred years or so, that wise scholars have searched 
for the writers, as the titles placed above the Gospels in 
our Bibles now were no part of the Gospels. Let us 
follow one of these wise scholars. He is going into the 
Bible and Bible times, to find the writer of St. John's 
Gospel, whose name is hidden there somewhere. 

173. First of all he finds out that the writer of St. 
John's Gospel must have been a Jew, Jewish feasts, 
Jewish customs, Jewish ideas, are all very familiar to 
him. More than this, he is a Jew of Palestine, and lived 
in the time of Jesus; for he knows the exact distance 
between Bethany and Jerusalem, the exact position of 
Sychar, knows about little jealousies, "Can any good 
thing come out of Nazareth," and that the Temple was 
forty-six years in building, all of which we find in other 



102 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

books of the same time. The writer was also an eye- 
witness, as may be known by reading verse 35, chapter 
xix., and verse 24 in chapter xxi. One step further, 
who is in this Gospel, "the disciple whom Jesus loved"? 
Why is the name of the disciple John never mentioned 
in this Gospel? **The disciple whom Jesus loved" 
claims to be the writer of the Gospel. Now Jesus had 
three disciples whom He took with Him on special 
occasions, Peter, James and John. Now we are getting 
nearer the author of this Gospel. James was killed early 
in his life, according to the Acts of the Apostles; Peter 
is named as running to the tomb with "the disciple 
whom Jesus loved." It was not therefore James or 
Peter; therefore it must have been John. 

174. Going outside the Bible into Bible times we 
find one hundred years after St. John died that there 
were four Gospels, John, Luke, Matthew, and Mark, 
read in Church, and recognised as coming from the 
Apostles, and this is told us by a student of a teacher, 
who himself studied under St. John. Many people 
attempted to write gospels, but only our four were recog- 
nised as coming from the Apostles, one great member 
of the early Church, writing about sixty years after St. 
John died, saying, "four Gospels handed down to us." 
Not only at this time were the four Gospels read in all 
the Churches, but they had been translated into different 
languages, as a great lawyer in Africa, living at this time, 
tells us. A fragment of writing that comes down to us 
from this age says among other things, "the fourth 
Gospel is the work of John, one of the disciples." 

175. The Gospels were not written until some time 
after the death of Jesus. Jesus Himself never wrote 



THE GOSPELS — III IO3 

anything, except when He stooped down and with His 
finger wrote on the ground on the dust of the temple 
court. He never commanded His disciples to write a 
word. He told them to preach, to go forth and preach 
to all nations, but never a word so far as we can gather 
about a written Gospel. Perhaps you might wonder if 
they could remember the words of Jesus well enough 
to write them down afterwards. Well, the memory of 
the Eastern people is very extraordinary, and they would 
be constantly preaching them and talking them over 
amongst themselves. The Gospels of St. Matthew, 
St. Mark, St. Luke, are thought to have been written 
within forty years after the death of Jesus, because about 
that time took place the seige of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and 
the writers, had they been writing later, would have 
mentioned the destruction of Jerusalem. The Gospel of 
St. John was probably written about twenty or thirty 
years later, and was^ meant to fill in some of the lessons 
the others had left out. 

176. St. Matthew is thought to have possibly written 
first a little work called *'The sayings of Jesus," and 
afterwards to have written his Gospel from that work, 
and with the Gospel of St. Mark before him. The 
**Sayings of Jesus" have been lost, but most of that 
work is found in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Matthew 
was the Apostle whom Jesus called from the receipt of 
customs. 

177. St. Mark's Gospel is thought to have been 
dictated to him by St. Peter. The twelfth chapter and 
twelfth verse of the Acts of the Apostles tells us Peter 
came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose 
surname was Mark. And St. Peter in one of his epistles, 



104 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

calls St. Mark by the affectionate name of "my son." 
Also a prominent member of the early Church tells us, 
"Mark was Peter's interpreter." St. Mark's Gospel then 
is thought to have been the first. 

178. St. Luke opens his Gospel by telling us there 
were many other accounts of the life of Jesus, and that 
he is going to write one also. Probably St. Mark and 
the "Sayings of Jesus" by St. Matthew were amongst 
these, and the others (for there were probably many who 
had seen and heard Jesus) have been lost or were mere 
fragments. St. Luke was the companion of St. Paul 
in his journeys, and wrote the Acts of the Apostles also. 

179. St. John gave lectures and sermons at Ephesus, 
late in his life, on Jesus and His teaching. Long after 
the other Gospels were well known, about twenty or 
thirty years after they were written, St. John at Ephesus, 
was asked by his friends to write his Gospel. St. John's 
Gospel evidently takes for granted that the life of Jesus 
as written in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, is 
Well known, and he is content to fill in. Being the 
nearest and dearest to Jesus, he gives us the highest 
teaching of Jesus. 

180. We will suppose you wanted to get a good 
account of your last school closing. Matthew Perkins, 
a boy in the top class, writes down some notes. Peter 
Simpson, a boy also in the top form, dictates his ideas 
of the closing to Henry Mark. Matthew Perkins then 
writes his account, using Henry Mark's account and his 
own notes. Therefore you have now accounts written 
by Matthew and Mark. But Kenneth Luke, a boy 
who was not at the closing, writes an account, getting 
notes from Matthew and using Mark's account, and any 



THE GOSPELS — III IO5 

Other accounts he can find. Now you have three ac- 
counts, all more or less the same, yet different. Then 
John Fairbanks, the head boy of the school, is asked to 
write his account, and he fills in what the others have 
left out. So you have the four accounts of your school 
closing, like the four Gospels of the Life of Jesus. 

181. Of course, it will not astonish you to know 
that the original copies actually written by Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John, have long been lost, because with 
so many copies and translations and the putting together 
into one written or printed book the whole Bible, the 
newest and cleanest copies would be sought. Would you 
like to know what is the oldest copy in existence of the 
Gospels? A writer six hundred years ago says that a 
man named Tatian, who lived about one hundred years 
after St. John died, wrote the four Gospels out in one 
long story, and that this one long story was written about 
by a man named Ephraem, living three hundred years 
after St. John died. This book of Ephraem's is the 
oldest copy of the four Gospels. So we say the oldest 
copy of the four Gospels that we can see to-day, was 
written just about three hundred years after St. John 
wrote his Gospel. And the oldest copies of the whole 
Bible were written about the same time, three tremen- 
dous old musty volumes, one in London, one in Rome, 
and one in Russia. 

182. The first copies, indeed, were not written as 
books, but slowly by hand for the different churches, 
and the churches must often have lost them during 
persecution. We are delighted then to find in the 
early writers of the Church just after the Apostles died 
quotations from the Gospels covering every important 



I06 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

occurrence or teaching in the Gospels. Indeed, people 
then did not think of preserving the Apostle's hand- 
writing, but rather of getting a clean and new edition 
of the life and teaching of their Master Jesus. 

183. What then do we learn from the Gospels, the 
most important part of our Bible? This at any rate, 
that God had taught the people in the world through 
Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, and the Prophets simple 
lessons first, and then harder and more perfect lessons, 
until through Jesus He taught the world the highest 
lessons possible, the Perfect Laws of Righteousness, which 
Jesus also lived up to, proclaiming Himself to be the 
Son of God and the Saviour of the World. 

184. Such was the life, and such were the titles, of 
the little Babe that was born in the stable of Bethlehem; 
of the Boy Who worked in the carpenter's shop ; of Him 
Who went about doing so much good; of the King Who 
set up the most marvellous Kingdom in the world; of 
the Wonderful and good Being that met the criminal's 
death; of the wonderful One Who returned from the 
grave. — God give you strength to follow a little in His 
footsteps, and to be a helpful member in the Kingdom 
of God. 



CHAPTER XI 

OTHER WRITINGS OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT 

185. Supposing you were out at a Boy Scout's Camp, 
and a history of the Scout Camp was put together in this 
way. First of all, a diary of one of the boys who had 
been there off and on during the summer, had seen some 
of the camp life himself, and had taken pains to get 
news from the other boys; first of all, a diary; then the 
most important letters that passed between the boys and 
their parents; then a great essay on camp life; — if we had 
these three things, a diary, letters, and the essay to read, 
we would have a very good idea of the camp life. So 
it is in the New Testament, the other writings than the 
Gospels give us a history of the early Church life in the 
Apostles' time. First a diary, the Acts of the Apostles, 
by St. Luke, part of which he had seen himself, part of 
which he wrote from the information of others; second, 
letters called Epistles, written by the Apostles, and then 
the essay, the last book, the Revelation of St. John, — 
Diary, Letters, Essay. 

186. But before the history of the Boy Scout's Camp 
could be written, the camp must have been organized, 
and in existence for some time. So before the history 
of the Church could have been written, the Church must 
have been in existence. The Church came first, then 

107 



Io8 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

the New Testament; but when the New Testament was 
written, it made the Church wonderfully strong. 

187. The Church grew by Visions and Power which 
the Apostles received. Persecution did not make the 
Apostles tremble, but seemed to give them strength. 
When the disciples were gathered together there ap- 
peared unto them tongues like as of fire, and they were all 
filled with the Holy Spirit, and went out and spoke in 
other languages than their own. They were so filled 
with the Holy Spirit that they added great numbers to 
the Church; and God must know best how to begin His 
Church. 

188. The Power which Jesus had over disease He 
handed on to the Apostles. A boy is servant to a doctor. 
He sees the doctor mixing certain powders to cure 
certain diseases. The doctor knows how he cures, but 
the boy does not. Yet after the doctor dies the boy 
by using the powders properly may cure, as long as the 
powders last. So the servants of Jesus entered a little 
into His secret of power over disease, but did not under- 
stand how He cured, yet were able to cure people — so 
long as the power lasted. 

189. You will remember also about St. Paul's vision 
of Jesus on His way to Damascus, which turned him 
from persecuting the Church into the Churst's most 
energetic worker, after some years of deep meditation. 
**I was not disobedient to the Heavenly vision," says 
St. Paul afterwards to King Agrippa. St. Paul spread 
the Church through all the known civilized world, 
travelling on long journeys, establishing Churches, and 
writing letters to them afterwards. St. Paul is the last 
of the great men of the Bible, the last of those whom 
God chose as His great messengers in Bible times. What 



OTHER WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IO9 

a magnificent list, leading up to and helping the work 
of Jesus in the world, Abraham who made God his 
friend, Moses who formed a nation to do God's will, 
Samuel who gave that nation education, David who 
headed the nation in Kingship, poetry and penitence, 
Isaiah the greatest of the Prophets, Peter the energetic 
leader of the early Church, John the beloved disciple, 
closer to Jesus and His thoughts than any other, Paul 
the first missionary spreading the Church throughout the 
world. 

190. Would you like to go hunting the thimble 
again to find out who was the author of the Acts of 
the Apostles? Well, the writers of the early church 
tell us Luke was the author of the Acts of the Apostles 
as well as of St. Luke's Gospel. Who was St. Luke? 
St. Paul calls him in one of his epistles the beloved 
physician. He was, therefore, a companion of St. Paul, 
and a companion of St. Paul must have written the Acts, 
for he frequently writes, ^*We" did this and *'We" 
did that. But there were other companions of St. Paul. 
Yes, but we are playing this game in a doctor's house, 
and the thimble, or author's name, is hidden behind the 
bandages and surgical instruments of Luke the physician. 
St. Luke's Gospel and the Acts have introductions to 
the same person, Theophilus, in a different manner 
from all the other Gospels and Epistles, but just like the 
medical essays were begun in those days. Many are the 
medical names used in St. Lukes's Gospel and the Acts, 
amongst which may be mentioned the undergirding of 
the ship in chapter twenty-eight and the twenty-sixth 
verse, where the word undergirding means bandaging. 

191. St. Luke's Acts of the Apostles then is like 
the diary of the early church; he had seen some of the 



1 10 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

church life himself, and had taken pains to get informa- 
tion on the part he had not seen. Now we come to 
consider the letters or epistles of the Apostles. When 
you sit down to write a letter to someone you generally 
begin, "Dear Mr. so and so," or something like that, 
and sign your name at the end, say John Smith. But 
that is not the way they wrote letters in St. Paul's time. 
Supposing you were writing to your master in the style 
of St. Paul's day, you would write, *^John Smith, a 
pupil of your school, to my teacher greeting." If you 
want to see a letter of St. Paul's day turn to the twenty- 
third chapter and the twenty-sixth verse in the Acts of 
the Apostles. 

192. The Epistles or Letters of the Apostles are not 
placed in the Bible in the order in which they were 
written, but like the prophecies in the Old Testament 
they are put in groups. St. Paul's Epistles first, then 
James, Peter, John and Jude. Some of these were 
Letters to different churches or to private persons or to 
a group of churches. There are one or two things that 
you might like to know about the Epistles. First of 
all, they were nearly all written before the four Gospels 
were written, St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians 
probably being first written. Then if you ever hear 
clergymen giving out the portion of the Bible in the 
Epistles they are going to read, you will notice they 
say, St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, or St. Paul's 
Epistle to the Corinthians, except in the case of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, which they give out without 
any name of Apostle attached to it, just, the Epistle 
to the Hebrews. This is because most scholars consider 
that St. Paul did not write this Epistle, the titles abovQ 



OTHER WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT III 

the different books of the Bible being as you know no 
part of the original Bible. 

193. There is no need for you to read the Epistles 
through as you would be very much puzzled at the 
language in them if you had not a good book to explain 
them. Begin by reading and thinking over these 
chapters which I put here for you — Romans 12, — I. 
Corinthians, 2, 13 and 15 — II. Corinthians 4 and 5, — 
I. Thessalonians 4, — II. Thessalonians 3, — Ephesians 
6, — Philippians 2, — Hebrews 11 and 12, — James i. 
There are other passages, but these will be enough to 
begin your study with, then read carefully the magnifi- 
cent first chapter in the Epistle to the Ephesians. 

194. You have looked at the diary of St. Luke in 
the Acts of the Apostles, you have looked at the Letters 
of St. Paul, there now remains the Essay, or the Revela- 
tion of St. John the Divine. This is partly an address 
to seven churches which had been built up in different 
parts of the world, and partly a great pictorial descrip- 
tion of what was happening at the time, and of what 
would happen in the end. But you must always 
remember it is pictorial language. So now you ought 
to know something about the Bible, how it has been 
put together, from the pre-historic times to the great 
Essay of St. John the Divine, — how God had been 
teaching the people of the world through His great 
servants of the Old Testament, through Jesus in the 
New Testament until we say the Bible is the Word of God. 

195. You now know how God's messages were 
given slowly but surely, easy Lessons first, and then 
harder and more perfect ones until Jesus gave God's 
Perfect Laws of Righteousness. Perhaps you would 
like in your school to jump right into the top form 



112 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE 

without having to work and study in the primary and 
lower grades. But for some reason known to God He 
has not made you or your brain so that you could do 
that. So we might say why could not Jesus have come 
at first and told the world then the Perfect Laws of 
Righteousness; well, for some reason, and certainly a 
very good reason, known to God, He has not made the 
world or the people in it to live in ease with no hard 
work or study. Hard work and study help to make 
character, and it is not dolls that God is making but 
characters. 

196. You now know that in the times before 
history was written God spoke through the pre-historic 
stories of the Creation, Garden of Eden, Flood, and 
Tower of Babel, this first simple message and lesson, 
— God will punish wicked doers, but help good people. 
That through Abraham God spoke his second message 
and Lesson, — I am a Friend Who speaks to you and 
to Whom you may speak. That through Moses these 
lessons were written out. That through the wars of 
Joshua and the Judges God gave this message, — 
^Though you sin, if you come back to me and ask 
me for help, sorrowful for your wickedness, I will help 
you." That through David God taught that the worst 
sin for ourselves was the sin we were not sorry for. 
That through the Prophets the world was learning to be 
good from love of God and Holiness. That through 
Jesus the Perfect Laws of Righteousness were given 
and lived. That the Kingdom of God founded by 
Jesus was lived by the early church whose history we 
have in the Diary, Letters, and Essays, of St. Luke, the 
Apostles and St. John; — Messages and Lessons from 
God, — ^no wonder we call the Bible the Word of God. 



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